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Historical Magazine 



Fresh Perspectives on Maryland's Past: 
The Seventeenth-Century Experience 




Published Quarterly by The Museum and Library of Maryland History 
The Maryland Historical Society 
Spring 1984 



THE MARYLAND fflSTORICAL SOCIETY 



OFFICEm, im3-1984 



J. Fife Symington, Jr., Chairman* 
Robert G. Merrick, Sr., Honorary Chairman 
Leonard C. Crewe, Jr., Vice Chairman* 
Brian B. Topping, President* 



Mrs. Charles W. Cole, Jr., Vice President* 
E. Phillips Hathaway, Vke President* 
J. Jefferson Miller, II, Vice President* 
Walter D. Pinkard, Sr., Vice President* 
Truman T. Semans, Vice President* 
Frank H. Weller, Jr., Vice President* 

* The officers listed above constitute the Society's Executive Committee. 



William C. Whitridge, Vice President* 
Richard P. Moran, Secretary* 
Mrs. Frederick W. Lafferty, Treasurer* 
BmmatA Hopkins, Past President* 
Bryson L. Cook, Counsel* 



BOARD OF TRUSTEES, 1983-1984 



H. Furlong Baldwin 

Mrs. Emory J. Barber, St. Mary's Co. 

Gary Black, Jr. 

John E. Boulais, Caroline Co. 

J. Henry Butta 

Mrs. James Frederick Colwill (Honorary) 

Owen Daly, II 

Donald L. DeVries 

Leslie B. Disharoon 

Deborah B. English 

Charles 0. Fisher, Carroll Co. 

Louis L. Goldstein, Calvert Co. 

Anne L. Gormer, Allegany Co. 

Kingdon Gould, Jr., Howard Co. 

William Grant, Garrett Co. 

Benjamin H. Griswold, III 

R. Patrick Hayman, Somerset Co. 

Louis G. Hecht 

Edwin Mason Hendrickson, Washirtgton Co. 

T. Hughlett Henry, Jr., Talbot Co. 

Michael Hoffberger 

E. R«lpb HoBtetter, Cecil Co. 

Mmer M. Jackson, Jr., Anne Arundel Co. 

William S. James, Harford Co. 



H. Irvine Keyser, II (Honorary) 
Richard R. Kline, Frederick Co. 
John S. Lalley 
Calvert C. McCabe, Jr. 
Robert G. Merrick, Jr. 
Michael Middleton, Charles Co. 
W. Griffin Morrel 
Jack Moseley 

Thomas S. Nichols (Honorary) 

Mrs. Brice Phillips, Worcester Co. 

J. Hurst Purnell, Jr., Kent Co. 

George M. Radcliffe 

Adrian P. Reed, Queen Anne's Co. 

Richard C. Riggs, Jr. 

Mrs. Timothy Rodgers 

David Rogers, Wicomico Co. 

John D. Schapiro 

Jacques T. Schlenger 

T. Rowland Slingluff, Jr. (Honorary) 

Jess Joseph Smith, Jr., Prince George's Co. 

John T. Stinson 

Bernard C. Trueschler 

Thomas D. Washbume 

Jeffrey P. Williamson, Dorchester Co. 



COUNCIL, 1983-1984 



William Arnold 

Mrs. Howard Baetjer, II 

Thomas M. Caplan 

Mrs. Dudley I. Catzen 

Leonard C. Crewe, Jr. 

Mrs. Hammond J. Dugan, III 

Walter Fisher 

Ramsey W. J. Flynn 

Arthur J. Gutman 



Mrs. John S. Kerns, Jr. 
Jon Harlan Livezey 
Walter D. Pinkard 
Norman G. Rukert, Sr. 
W. Cameron Slack 
Vernon Stricklin 
William C. Whitridge 
Mrs. Vernon H. Wiesand 



Romaine Stec Somerville, Director 
William B. Keller, Head Librarian 
Stiles Tattle Cc^vill, Curator of the Gallery 



MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE (ISSN 0025-4258) is mbHshed quarterly by The Museum and Library of Maryland History, The 
Maryland Historical Society, 201 W. Monument St., Baitimorft, Md. 21£01. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, Md. and at additional mailing 
offices. POSTMASTER please send address changes to the MARYLAltt) HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 201 W. Monument St., Baltimore, Md 21201. 

Composed and printed by Waverly Preas, Inc., BaHimore, Md. 21202. ^ Copyright 1964, The Mueeura and Library of Maryland History, The 
Maryland Historical Society. 



MAKTLAND 
HISTmiCAL 

MAGAZINE 

Special 350th Anniversary Issue 
"Fresh Perspectives on Maryland's Past 
The Seventewith-Century Experience" 

CONTENTS 



H. Mebane Turner A Statement from the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of 



Maryland 1 

Stephen Vincent Benet Prologue: A Selection from Western Star 2 

4- Frederick Fausz "The Seventeenth-Century Experience": An Introduction 3 

d. Frederick Fausz Present at the "Creation": The Chesapeake World That Greeted 

the M«i:^nd Colonists 7 

John D. Krugler "With promise of Liberty in Religion": The Catholic Lords 

Baltimore and Toleration in Seventeenth-Century Maryland, 
1634-1692 21 

Lois Green Carr Sources of Political Stability and Upheaval in Seventeenth- 
Century Maryland 44 

RusseB M. Mmrn^ Population, Economy, ^tm& §@d«ty m g«v«RfeMB4dr-<GMIhiicy 

Maryland 71 

Stephen Vieme^Mpiet Epilogue: A Selection from Wtstern Star « , ^ 93 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 94 



Book Reviews 

Quiniij ed., Early Maryland in a Wider World, by Margaret W. Masson • Main, Tobacco Colony: Life in 

Iml p iiiMi ii at t650-i72o, \^Gm h. mrtm .:mHfmr}.h^mnt^. !« ?/t.>;?''X1«. .»-. »s 

NEWS AND NOTICES 98 



This Special Issue is underwritten by a grant from the Society of Colonial 
Wars m the State of Maryland. 



HALL OF RECORE« i©RARY 
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 



Volume 79 
Number 1 
Spring 1984 
ISSN-0025-4258 





"Ark and Dove — Arrival, March 25, 1634" by Ben Neill, American Society 
of Marine Artists, 1981, acrylic on wood, 20 inches X 30 inches. In the 
possession of Maryland Bank and Trust, Lexington Park, Maryland. 
(Reproduced courtesy of the Rev. Michael diTeccia Farina, Director, The 
Paul VI Institute for the Arts of the Archdiocese of Washington.) 

"In the beginning," wrote the influential philosopher, John Locke, "all the 
world was America." This recent painting, the latest and one of the best examples 
in a long line of historical artwork commemorating early Maryland, symbolizes 
the mystery and sense of expectation that must have gripped Englishmen and 
Indians alike as the Ark approached landfall in Maryland waters. We are grateful 
to artist Ben Neill, a.s.m.a., of Sandwich, Massachusetts, for his beautiful, 
sensitive portrayal of this historic event. 



WHEREAS, It is desirable that there should be adequate celebrations commem- 
orative of the events of Colonial History which took place within the period 
beginning with the settlement of Jamestown, Va., May 13, 1607, and preceding 
the battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775; 

Tfm«^in %, fhe Society of Colonial Wars is instituted to perpetuate the memory 
of those events, and of the men who, in military, naval, and civil positions of 
high trust and responsibility, by their acts or counsel, assisted in the establish- 
ment, defence, and preservation of the American Colonies, and who were in 
truth founders of the Nation. To this end, it seeks to collect and preserve 
mimmr^pts, rolls, relics, and records; to hold suitable commemoration, mid to 
erect memorials relating to the American Colonial period; to inspire in its 
members the fraternal and patriotic spirit of their forefathers; and to inspire in 
the community respect and re§ftO»lilfnr ilummk()i»^iMk mrmces mede our 
freedom and unity possible. 

So states the preamble to the Constitution of the General Society 
of Colonial Wars. The Society of Colonial Wars in the State of 
Maryland, of which I am privileged to be Governor, is an integral part 
of the General Society, as are tiii^-^fpppjBrti^%(in _l^^fl^^^f||■ffi^emtR the 
nation. 

Over the years since its founding in 1893, the Maryland Society has 
underwritten dozens of projects related to the Colonial era ... an 
historical marker for "Waverly" in Howard County, a gift of colonial 
stive* to ^e Matyhmd Historical Society, the flags which fly from the 
Doue, a contribution to Preservation, Inc. in Chestertown, a replica of 
an antique firearm for St. Mary's City, a grant to help restore West- 
minster Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. 

Last year, with the approach of the 350th anniversary of the found- 
ing of the Palatinate of Maryland, we proposed to the Maryland 
Historical Society to underwrite the publication of a special issue eHP 
the quarterly to be devoted to the early history of Maryland. Our offer 
was gladly accepted. Dr. J. Frederick Fausz, a highly respected colonial 
hiStoif»n on the flaeufty of St. Mary's College of Maryland, agreed to 
serve as guest editor and proceeded to assemble a panel of his col- 
leagues whose impressive effort you will find on the pages following. 

It is th« hope a»d bdM Of Socletf of CoiOtrial Wars and of the 
Maryland Historical Society that this publication will cast light into 
dark and obscure corners of 17th Century Maryland and that it will 
earn a reflected place among the chronicles of t^ CM §t«fee. 

H. Mebane Turner 



Maryland Historical Magazine 
Vol. 79, No. 1, SpRine 1^4 



1 



• • • , Ui ii .J .• 

But for all these, the nameless, numberless 
Seed of the field, the mortal wood and earth 
Hewn for the clearing, trampled for the ^or, 
Uprooted and cast out upon the stone 
From Jamestown to Benicia. 
This is their song, this is their testament, 
Carved to their likeness, speaking in their tongue 
t"- 'iA!>ni'-lM'anded with the ifoti of their #lil».'> ■>-tn> s^'t .-"^v • 
I say you shall remember them. I say 
When night has fallen on your loneliness 
And the deep wood beyond the ruined waH 
' * Seems to step forward swiftly with the dusk, 
to You shall remember them. You shall not see 

rixi ■WTVi^ater or wheat or axe-mark orf«iWm4 ^ * " 

And not re*a«aibet'feli«nEi. 



Now, in full summer, by the Eastern shore. 
Between the seamark and the roads going West, 
I I call two oceans to remember them. .t/) at'.. .1 iiv.i- 

I fill the hollow darkness with their names. 

-Excerpt from "Western Star" by Stephen Vincent Benet (New York: Holt, 
Rinehart and Winston, Inc.), "Invocation," pp. vii-viii. ®Copyright, 1943, by 
Rosemary Carr Benet. Copyright renewed, 1971, by Thomas C. Benet, Stephanie 
B. Mahin, and Rachel Benet Lewis. Reprinted by permission of Brandt & Brandt 
Literary Agents, Inc., New York. 

■ill ■ ' I 'irtT/ iilj o'l Mil".' 1^.11 



2 



The main currents of colonial progress . . . are to be found only in the daily and yearly 
round of actual colonial experience, in the workng out of the problems which confronted 
the colonists in their various communities, and in the conflict of old ideas and practices 
. . . with the later needs and notions arising from contacts with new conditions in a new 
environment. 

— Charles McLean Andrews, Our Earliest Colonial Settlements (1933) 

"The Seventeenth— Century Experience": 
Ji^Iiitro^Wjgjfeoii: ^ 4 ; ^ 

J. FREDERICK FAUSZ, Guest Editor 



Fifty years ago, on the eve of Mary- 
land's 300th anniversary, Historian 
Charles McLean Andrews observed that 
only through a comprehensive investiga- 
tion "of all phases, all men, and all con- 
structive thought" from the far-distant 
past could Americans "hope to fathom the 
depths of colonial conduct and to penetrate 
the mysteries of colonial action, and only 
thus. . .expect to comprehend the great is- 
sues that were at stake in this long and 
notable period of our national history.'" In 
1957, as Virginia celebrated its 350th an- 
niversary, an equally-distinguished histo- 
rimi of his generation, Oscar Handlin, 
wrote that "a commemorative occasion is a 
time for retrospection — for looking back- 
ward from the present to take account of 
the way we have come. . . . [I]ts true value 
arises from the opportunity it offers us to 
acquire perspective on the present and the 
future."=^ 

It was with both perspectives in mind 
that this Special 350th Anniversary Issue 
was commissioned and organized. The es- 
says that appear below — Lois Green Carr's 
on political developments, John D. Krug- 
ler's on religion, and Russell R. Menard's 
on social and economic trends — offer us a 
' broad, thematic, and inter-related analysis 
of the formative years of the seventeenth 
^ century so better to enrich and inform a 
I wide readership about the present as well 

Ias the past. Considering that historians 
usually restrict their subject matter to one 
event or a single decade in journal articles, 
our contributors to this present-day "noble 




Hmwi^ MsTOMtm Magazine 
¥o».. n, No. 1, ^MWG 1984 



Special Issue. Much like the colonial adven- 
turers three-and-a-half centuries ago, th^ 
have daringly departed from the familiar 
and the narrowly-circumscribed in time 
and place to embark upon investigative and 
interpretative frontiers with few guideposts 
and almost limitless boundaries and hove 
arrived at their "destinations" with a re- 
freshing, insightful enthusiasm. It is hoped 
that this presentation of new and innova- 
tive perspectives on a Maryland long-since 
vanished will serve as a fitting and lasting 
intellectual commemoration of the original 
breadth of vision that laid the foundation 

of our comi»enj(||Mll^>i^ili iMiilfi ^ 

years ago. ,111.1 7 

This issue of the Maryland Historical 
Magazine is indeed a special one, for not 
only does it mark a meaningful anniversary 
for all Marylanders, but it also reflects in a 
broader sense the renaissance of seven- 
teenth-century Chesapeake studies that 
has occurred in the historical profession 
over the last decade-and-a-half. Not since 
the 250th anniversary of Maryland have 
historians been so interested in the earliest 
years of the Chesapeake colonies, and never 
before have scholars been so well-equipped 
to study and re-evaluate all aspects of the 
seventeenth-century experience. Unlike 
the older accounts that concentrated on a 
few great men and grand events or on the 
localized and personalized minutiae of the 
past, historians in the THjHWirl of the cur- 
rent Chesapeake renaissance study coloni- 
cal societies, in all their breadth and depth, 
f!ftil0li((^te^*rttiflpi^^r^^**'^si^?> ^SPWi^iWS. 



4 ,1-^ I. . -i i§mmji»9uMmimKM. Magazine 



Committed to approaches that are integra- 
tive and interdisciplinary, holistic and pro- 
cessual, these scholars use eclectic, imagi- 
native methods and sources to retrieve and 
unravel the separate threads of the seven- 
teenth-century experience and then weave 
them into a comprehensive, interpretative 
tapestry of the past. 

Nineteen-Eighty-Four finds early Ches- 
apeake studies in the forefront of Colonial 
American History, and Maryland has con- 
tributed substantially to this emergence 
through the productivity of scholars like 
those featured in this issue and through 
activities associated with the St. Mary's 
City Commission, the Hall of Records, and 
the Maryland Historical Society. As the 
citizens of this state prepare to commemo- 
rate an important historical milestone, 
scholars on both sides of the Atlantic are 
discovering the hidden treasures and vital 
secrets, obscured by neglect and hidden by 
tc^oil, that reveal Maryland's signal con- 
tributions to a distinctive seventeenth -cen- 
tury Anglo-American world. Historian 
John M. Murrin wrote recently that the 
colonial Chesapeake "harshly challenges 
most of the categories of historical devel- 
fi^ment by which American social thought 
has tried to comprehend the emergence of 
the modern world" and argued that early 
Maryland and Virginia represented the 
more consistent, common experiences of 
New World colonization than did Puritan 
New England."^ 

In 1957, Professor Handlin observed that 
"social disorder, the acceptance of risk, and 
the precariousness of life that developed in 
the seventeenth century long remained 
characteristic of America. It was the signif- 
icance of the seventeenth century to bring 
into being peculiarities of character and 
institutions, the influence of which was 
long thereafter felt in the history of the 
United States."* In the essays below^%flf 
contributors recognize and reveal varying 
degrees of "disorder, risk, and precarious- 
ness" that helped shape Maryland in the 
seventeenth century. Similar patterns and 
common observations emerge from reading 
the essays together, confirming for a twen- 
tieth-century audience what our forebears 
W6k for granted: that religion and politics, 
economics and demographics, were inter- 



related and interdependent parts of the so- 
cial organism. Although the separation of 
individual parts and components from the 
whole is a necessary function of modern 
scholarly analysis, we should remind our- 
selves as we read these essays that colonial 
society was a complex, interconnected 
whole of many layers and dimensions, anal- 
ogous to the traii^arejit overl^y^ of human 
anatomy in medical textbooks or to those 
clear, multi-tiered chess boards that appear 
so intimidating. 

Seventeenth-century Maryland society 
was simple, crude, basic, and "small," com- 
pared to the larger, more sophisticated, and 
aesthetically-influential one of the eight- 
eenth-century "golden age." Those early 
years constituted a period roughly equiva- 
lent to human development between in- 
fancy and adulthood, revealing all of the 
characteristics — naivety, lack of coordina- 
tion, disproportionate growth, susceptibil- 
ity to accidents and mistakes — that are as- 
sociated with the painful, tortured time 
known as adolescence. Seventeenth-cen- 
tury colonization to the Chesapeake fea- 
tured a halting, often haphazard, adjust- 
ment of an English population (vulnerable 
to disease, disaster, and premature death), 
and of ideas either too old to be useful or 
too new to be trusted, to a new environment 
filled with strange pfofule and products, 
pitfalls and potential!MlB^"^'*" 

As our contributors argue in this issue, 
catalysts to learning and growth in the New 
World came from a variety of sources, as 
the early colonists and their embryonic so- 
ciety discovered that they were not alone 
and would not be left alone. Seventeenth- 
century Marylanders quickly discerned 
that they were not in complete control of 
their destinies, as personalities and events 
in Virginia and in England repeatedly in- 
fluenced the evolution of the province. 
Boundaries and loyalties were equally flex- 
ible and susceptible to outside manipula- 
tion, and colonists soon learned that prag- 
matic interest-group alliances often made 
a mockery of traditional religious, national, 
and cultural allegiances. While certain am- 
bitious Virginians had a hand in shaping 
Maryland's future, the influence of the 
mother country had the greatest, longterm 
impact. Linked to the Stuart kings during 
one of the most revolutionary eras in Brit- 



Introduction 



5 



ish History, the Calverts and their colony 
knew all too well the ill winds and occa- 
sional gales that blew across the Atlantic. 
Factionalism and rebelliousness on both 
sides of the water — the Potomac as well as 
the Atlantic — made Cecil Calvert one of 
the steadiest but most threatened tight- 
rope walkers of that or any age. 

Like the lord proprietor, the colonists of 
Maryland came to accept and expect con- 
flict and change in their lives. In order to 
eventually reach goals and live lives that 
were beyond their grasp in England, the 
early settlers had to adapt to a world that 
was institutionally and intellectually less 
well-developed than the homeland they 
left. Initially, they lived in the lodges of the 
Yoacomacos, hunted and fished as much as 
they farmed, grew Indian maize instead of 
English wheat, and organized their new 
world around the impermanence of wood 
structures and an equally-impermanent so- 
cial structure that was riddled with death 
and jeopardized by loosened kinship ties. 
In the process of adapting and adopting, 
the colonists received inestimably valuable 
assistance from the native population, the 
great teachers of the American woodlands, 
and together these merging peoples and 
cultures produced a hybrid, emerging, 
Chesapeake world that was truly new to all. 

All sorts of "mergers" were required in 
this early colonial environment. The expe- 
dient merged with the idealistic, as religious 
toleration and political compromise saved 
Maryland from its enemies, attracted set- 
tlers, and prevented internal dissension. 
Ift^aMB "merged" with Englishmen, Prot- 
estants with Catholics, free laborers with 
servants, blacks with whites, the rich with 
the poor, as new human relationships were 
fashioned out of commcm interests and the 
need for mutual preserviirtatm, largely irre- 
spective of race or culture, color or creed. 
The English of Maryland allied with the 
local Piscataways and Patuxents while 
fighting with their countrymen in Virginia, 
and the English in Virginia befriended the 
Susquehannocks, who fought both the In- 
dian allies and the colonists under Lord 
Baltimore's protection. For a time in this 
"naive" society. Catholics and Protestants 
lived and labored together in peace and 
harmony as in no other place on earth 
during an age of hate and intolerance. 



When Puritan Massachusetts expelled 
Catholics and Anglican Virginia expelled 
Puritans and Catholics, all found their way 
to Maryland. Free blacks and Jews, Euro- 
pean "foreigners" and the destitute from 
England arrived here to thrive as farmers 
and merchants before the laws of a larger, 
later society restricted them to artificial 
categories and servile roles. For a while, 
Maryland welcomed all into its culturally 
and racially diverse society, struggled migh- 
tily with internal dissidents and external 
enemies, and emerged stronger and more 
distinctive because of the risks and adver- 

Survival, success, and then growth, ma- 
turity, and sophistication came to Mary- 
land as it moved and changed through time 
toward the eighteenth century. But as all 
the essays in this issue suggest, the matu- 
ration of colonial Maryland may have been 
purchased at too great a cost. While disease 
and early death ceased to be as devastating 
as they once had been, and while much of 
the "disorder," risk, and precariousnesB of 
colonial life were dealt with successfully, 
human relationships became more rigid 
and inflexible, favoring a few at the expense 
of many. As the "golden age" of the eight- 
eenth century emerged, all Indians came to 
be seen as savages, all blacks as slaves, all 
Catholics as tyrants, and all poor whites as 
transients. 

The eighteenth-century age of grand 
brick mansions, large plantations, cultured 
gentlemen, international commerce, and 
Enlightenment ideas transformed the 
Chesapeake into a sophistical s»d tefhi- 
ential part of the Anglo-American world. 
It is admired and appreciated because it is 
fascinating, recognizable, and familiar to 
us, f lafoorous, closer in time to the Age of 
RevitAition and nation-brnMing, and in 
most senses, more "modern." And yet, in 
admitting that, we must also realize that 
the eighteenth-century standards of preju- 
dice and injustice — against the poor asd 
racial, religious, and ethnic minorities — are 
also quite familiar and recognizable to us 
today, although we have recently become 
less comfortable af^ t^mplacent about 
them. It is both, then, as curious students 
of Maryland's past and as interested citi- 
zens of the 1980s that we are long overdue 
in rediscovering the "cruder" of the two 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



6 

colonial centuries, and perhaps more than 
idle curiosity should compel us to become 
more familiar with a time when Maryland 
was establishing notable precedents in hu- 
man relationships within a pluralistic so- 
ciety, when our forebears were at oifee mom 
innocent and innovative. 

References 

1. Charles M. Andrews, Our Earliest Colonial Settle- 
ments (Ithaca: Cornell UnivMsity Press, 1959 
[orig. publ. 1933]), p. 167. 



2. Oscar Handlin, "The Significance of the Seven- 
teenth Century," in James Morton Smith, ed., 
Seventeenth-Century America: Essays in Colonial 
History (Chapel Hill: University of North Caro- 
lina Press, 1959), p. 3. 

3. Review of The Chesapeake in the Seventeenth 
Century: Essays on Anglo-American Society, ed. 
Thad W. Tate and David L. Ammerman, The 
William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., XXXVIII 
(Jan. 1981), 116, 120-21. See also Tate's essay, 
"The Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake and Its 
Modem Historians," in that volume, pp. 3-50. 

4. Handlin, "Significance of the Seventeenth Cen- 
tury," in Smith, ed., Seventeenth-Certkiry Amer- 
ica, p. 12. 



• , ''It.' -I • -il*' . 



Present At the "Creation": 

The Chesapeake World That Greeted the 

Maryland Colonists 

I FREDERICK FAUSZ , „ 



On 30 March 1634, after some three 
weeks of reconnoitering in the Potomac 
River, the first Maryland colonists estab- 
lished St. Mary's City, in peace and with 
the permission of the native population, 
among the villagers of Yoacomaco, in the 
land of the Piscataways. "Is not this mirac- 
ulous," wrote Father Andrew White, "that 
a nation . . . should like lambes yeeld them- 
selves,[and be] glad of our company, giveing 
us houses, land, and liveings for a trifle?'" 

Less than one month later, Captain Cy- 
prian Thorowgood sailed north from St. 
Mary's City to the mouth of the Susque- 
hanna River and there encountered Cap- 
tain William Claiborne's beaver traders 
from Kent Island doing a brisk business 
with the Susquehannocks. "So soone as 
they see us a comeing," he reported, "Cla- 
born'es men persuaded the Indians to take 
part with them against us . . . but the Indi- 
ans refused, saying the English had never 
harmed them, neither would they fight soe 
neare home."^ 

In case they needed reminding, these two 
episodes convinced the first Maryland col- 



J. Frederick Fausz is Assistant Professor of History at 
St. Mary's College of Maryland. He completed his Ph. 
D. in 1977 at The College of William and Mary, writing 
a dissertation on Anglo-Indian relations in the early 
Chesapeake, 1580-1630. His publications include es- 
says in The William and Mary Quarterly, American 
Indian Culture and Research Journal, The Maryland 
Historian, and other journals, as well as contributions 
to collected works such as Struggle and Survival in 
Colonial America, ed. David G. Sweet and Gary B. 
Nash (1981), Europeans and Native Americans: Early 
Contacts in Eastern North America, ed. William Fitz- 
hugh (forthcoming), and The Scholar and the Indian, 
ed. William R. Swagerty (forthcoming). Dr. Fausz also 
has training and experience as an historical editor, 
having worked on The Complete Works of Captain 
John Smith, 3 vols, (forthcoming), and The Papers of 
Benjamin Henry Latrobe (in i^ogress). 



Maryland Historical Magazine 
Vol. 7 9, No. 1, Spring 1984 



onists that they were not alone in the vast- 
ness of the Chesapeake. Strange and dan- 
gerous men, jealous and suspicious of Lord 
Baltimore's colony, were never far away, 
ever-threatening to offer violence to the 
embryonic settlement at St. Mary's. Such 
men were Virginians, not Indians, and 
those English enemies living to the south 
of Maryland would intermittently plague 
and harass their northern neighbors from 
1634 to 1658, while the Piscataways re- 
mained the consistent allies and helpmates 
of Cecil Calvert's colonists. To understand 
why this was so, we need to survey the 
history of the Chesapeake for several dec- 
ades prior to the atrival of the Ark Sifl 
Dove. 

The Maryland colonists of 1634 were 
only the latest in a long line of Europeans 
to penetrate the curtain of aboriginal life 
in the northern Chesapeake. French and 
Spanish explorers visited the Bay in the 
sixteenth century, and conquistadores from 
Florida had already designated the Chesa- 
peake the "Bay of St. Mary's" by the 1570s. 
When Captain John Smith made his fa- 
mous exploration of the Potomac and Sus- 
quehanna rivers in June-July 1608, he dis- 
covered that the Tockwoghs of the Eastern 
Shore and the Susquehannocks already 
possessed European trade goods and de- 
sired more. Smith reported that sixty of the 
"giantlike" and fur-rich Susquehannocks 
greeted him enthusiastically, showered him 
with presents, and covered him with a huge 
bearskin cloak in the hopes that he would 
consent to be their "governour" and defend 
them against their Iroquois enemies from 
lands near Lake Erie. Preoccupied with 
other matters, and anxious to return to the 
vulnerable outpo^ 'M iamMmd, Steiith 
minied a prime opportunity on that occa- 



8 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



sion to enlarge Virginia's contacts and to 
make the Chesapeake the fur trade capital 
of English America.^ 

While no other Englishmen renewed con- 
tacts with the Susquehannocks for some 
twenty years, other Europeans were active 
in the northern Chesapeake. Over the win- 
ter of 1615-1616, the French interpreter, 
Etienne Brule, lived with the Susquehan- 
nocks and explored the upper Bay while on 
a mission from Samuel de Champlain. 
Brule convinced the Susquehannocks to 
join a French-Huron-Algonkin alliance 
against their common enemies, the League 
Iroquois, which revealed how interest 
groups transcended ethnic and racial dif- 
ferences and spread their influence over 
much of eastern North America in the early 
seventeenth century/ 



Between 1610 and 1621, several English- 
men from Virginia, including Captain Sam- 
uel Argall and the boy-interpreters, 
Thomas Savage and Henry Spelman, vis- 
ited the Potomac and Patuxent river bas- 
ins, and at least one former resident of 
Jamestown, Robert Marcum, or "Mouta- 
pass" as the Indians called him, went "na- 
tive" and lived among the Patuxents for 
over five years. The Patawomekes of the 
south bank of the Potomac, along with the 
Accomacs and Accohannocs of Virginia's 
Eastern Shore, proved especially friendly 
and helpful to the English during food 
shortages and wars with the Powhatans to 
the south. But it was not until the mid- to 
late 1620s that Englishmen from Virginia 
would have the inclination and the oppor- 
tunity to establish and maintain longterm, 



y u. l|lNoiMLTERR.^-MAHIAt.i 




The first "authorized" map of Colonial Maryland, bound in copies of A Relation of Maryland (London, 
1635), between pages 19 and 20. "Augusta Carolina," referring to the tract of land between the St. 
Mary's River and the Bay and "St. Maries [City]" are two of only a few English placenames north of 
the Potomac. The major Indian habitations are carefiiUy, albeit incompletely, listed, but Virginia is 
made to look like an unoccupied wasteland and William Claiborne's Kent Island is recognized only 
as "Monoponson." (Photo courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society.) 



Present at the "Creedion" 



9 



mutually-beneficial relations with a host of 
Indians in the northern Chesapeake.^ 
' The inclination came as a result of the 
Virginia Company of London's long-over- 
due interest in establishing a fur trade in 
the Bay, but, ironically, the opportunity 
came to the colonists and not to their spon- 
sors and as a result of the worst Indian 
uprising ever suffered by Englishmen in the 
seventeenth century. On Friday, 22 March 
1622, Opechancanough and his Pamunkey- 
Powhatan alliance attacked dozens of Eng- 
lish homesteads along a one hundred mile 
stretch of the James River and slaughtered 
some 330 colonists, one-fourth of Virginia's 
population. However, in doing so, the In- 
dians unwittingly created new opportuni- 
ties for a few powerful English survivors. 
Men like William Claiborne, Samuel Ma- 
thews, and William Tucker quickly 
(imerged sai'ifaft^a^,^|if}ietf tte istic leaders 
and made the best of a bad situation.® 

Turning the Second Anglo-Powhatan 
War (1622-1632) to their advantage, mem- 
bers of the governor's council and the mil- 
1Mr;f*e^ii^fmanders they appointed gained 
leverage and grew wealthy by conducting 
twice-annual raids — called "harshe visitts" 
or "feedfights" — against the Powhatans, 
who were both their avowed enemies and 
the best maize farmers of th®" Sfga. Thus, 
instead of launching a genocidal war of holy 
revenge as so many in England counseled, 
the Virginia militia, led by opportunistic 
entrepreneurs like "Colonel," later "Major 
General," Claiborne, transformed the Pow- 
hatans into "red peasants." In a single ex- 
pedition in 1622, colonial raiders captured 
over a thousand bushels of PowhatM 
maize, fresh from the field, worth an esti- 
mated £500-£1000 sterling in those hard 
times. Several leaders became wealthy 
through war, selling captured maize for the 
tobacco oPmMt§*^"%gtmsl\y turning 
public distress into private profits. Virgin- 
ia's most successful raiders were called 
"Chieftaines" by the poor colonists they 
exploited — a fitting title, since timy as- 
sumed the {unctimd ^'tt^Sseke^^^&Mt&^n^ 
Powhatan werowances they sought to de- 
feat.' 

While Indians provided food for the col- 
ony, Virginia's leaders had English servants 
gi^WMetifWk Wll t ii ely to keep boll- 



don's interest in the Chesapeake and to 
enlarge their fortunes. The 1622 uprising 
had forced many free farmers to "forsake 
their houses . . . [and] to joyne themselves 
to some great mans plantation" for protec- 
tion and sustenance, and those hungry and 
defenseless souls who "scarce [had] a hok 
to hide their heads hi'*-few:«me-^*^cofe*e8d 
cash-crop labor" for the rich and powerful 
"Lords of those Lands." Organized into ef- 
ficient, all-male work gangs and placed on 
southside plantations secure from Indian 
raids, these servants were kept alive by 
Powhatan maize and kept in line by mas- 
ters who never let them forget what the 
Indian enemy would #a^««Pstttli#l*s*«id 
deserters. That this emergency reorgani- 
zation of Virginia's labor force worked ef- 
ficiently was demonstrated at harvest time, 
1622, when, only five months after the Po- 
whatans fe«(S*¥»i»!ieet}'ftie colony's popula- 
tion by one-fourth, the English exported 
60,000 pounds of tobacco, Jamestown's 
largest crop to date. Two years later, with 
only a few more hands available for work, 
Vii^inia exported •»5©,O06 'pouttds tjf^at 
profitable weed and fully committed its im- 
mediate future to a one-crop economy.® 

Virginia was able to prosper in the 1620s 
because the m^r against the Powhatans 
went i^^n, aiM^tHat Wat Went Wdl largely 
because the colonists formed alliances with 
key tribes based on mutual self-interest. 
The Patawomekes of the Potomac River 
and the Accomacs and Accohannocs of the 
Eastern Shore welcomed the opportunity 
that war provided to join with the English 
against the Powhatans, who had tried to 
^MlBiffiite them over*^ ymm> All three 
tribes provided essential services to the col- 
onists, including military intelligence, safe 
bases of operation, and additional supplies 
of food. The Vimnians built a fort adjoin- 
ing fii^!N!Mfvm^ VMfigif <)n -idm] jt^d 

them in raids against their Indian enemies, 
and worked in league with them to assem- 
ble and then poison a large delegation of 
Powhatan war chieftains at a meetii^ along 
the-PbtOtsac in May 1628: 'WiBs fdlowmg 
November, Governor Sir Francis Wyatt 
took ninety soldiers and military com- 
manders to the Potomac for the avowed 
purpose of "setling . . . trade with some of 
•ife' Ifeighboring Savadges in tile Bay." 



10 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



Seeking strategic advantage and revenge 
for an English expedition nearly annihi- 
4ated earlier that year, these Virginians in- 
deed "settled" something: they laid waste 
by fire and sword a village of the Piscata- 
ways in the Accokeek area in order to pro- 
tect the Patawomekes from their tradi- 
tional neighboring enemies. The English 
did such a thorough job of slaying the en- 
emy and scorching the earth that tribes 
from north of the Potomac joined Opechan- 
MfiOl^h against the colonists in 1624.^ 

l^at so many Englishmen would journey 
so far and fight so fiercely for Indian allies 
reveals the existence of a mature and stable 
inter-ethnic interest group. The Patawo- 
mekes, who had assisted the colonists in 
the capture of Pocahontas over a decade 
before, were obviously one group of Indians 
who could be "good" without being dead, 
and the vital role they played in English 
policy is indicated by the overly-scrupulous 
manner in which the colonists dealt with 
them. A few months after Wyatt's expedi- 
tion to the Potomac, the governor sent a 
t^ai^ iliin til itti" T iiff f ny in itiiti H fiw g i i|if¥ . 
and he cautioned his subordinate ntl-^ 
compel by any waies or meanes any IiKlans 
whatsoever to trade more than they shalbe 
willing to trade for; or to offer a^y lioiiiaiee 
to*llBy except in his owne detencS.'^ 

.^le Anglo-Powhatan War brought 
many changes to the Chesapeake and has- 
tened the acculturation of Englishmen in 
Virginia. War had taken them to the Po- 
tomac and exposed them to willing Indian 
allies; trade would keep them there and 
encourage new discoveries and still more 
faitftan alliances. The colonial le«iM>i'1«lM 
prospered during the fighting by monopo- 
lizing laborers, ships, interpreters, muni- 
tions, and tobacco profits used those com- 
modities to advantage in the mid- to late 
^^9s to become the first English fur trad- 
ers of the Chesapeake. In autumn 1624, 
George Sandys, courtier-poet and treasurer 
of Virginia, sent interpreter Robert Poole 
to the Potomac and Patuxent rivers on the 
ream's first rUtbfdsi' far tfgpeMdrt tf£ 
consequence. Poole paid some 20,000 blue 
beads (perhaps made at the Jamestown 
glass house by Sandys's "damned crew" of 
Italian glass-blowers) to the Indians, for 
1i¥lrjeatdy-wov«n^ imtive-grass floMi ttnt 
he needed to seal his leaky ship. But he 



also traded twenty-three arms' lengths of 
native shell beads (roanoke) and other 
goods for seven bear skins, six deer skins, 
two wildcat skins, nine otter skins, 29 mu»- 
krat skins, and one "Lyone skin."^' 

Sandys was not the only Englishman to 
realize that there was an Indian-related 
activity even more intriguing, and pc*e»» 
tially more lucrative, than "feedfights," and 
soon a host of ambitious entrepreneurs ex- 
perienced in raiding and trading directed 
their attention to the upper Chesapeake 
when the war with the Powhatans became 
less pressing and profitable. 

Henry Fleet and William Claiborne, who 
arrived in Virginia in 1621 from well-con- 
nected Kentish gentry families, quickly be- 
came the real pioneers and promoters of 
the Bay fur trade in its heyday. Fleet began 
his trading activities in 1627 following a 
five-year captivity with the MniMte l ite ' R ke 
(Nacostines, Anacostans) near present-day 
Washington, D. C. He had been one of the 
few survivors of the Indian attack that Gov- 
ernor Wyatt had gone to avenge in 1623. 
^MnHbeing Tanmmei*snA i tk etmii §Kfm im 
captors, Fleet returned to London, where 
one commentator reported that he "hath 
left his own language" because of his cap- 
tivity. Howevej;, JElegt tmtewkmei enoi;^ 
oftlSt mother teftgue to aHate ISstenemrwith 
his tales of "plenty of black fox, . . . the 
richest fur" that he had allegedly observed 
among the villages of his native hosts. In 
September 1627, Fleet convinced the prom^ 
inent merchant, William Cloberry, to en- 
trust him with the 100-ton Paramour on a 
trading voyage to America. By 1631 he was 
^e factor for Griffith and Company's 80- 
ton Warwick, recently returned from New 
England waters. When Fleet entered the 
Potomac on 26 October 1631 aboard that 
ship, he initiated what would become one 
^'^le^moit i i ita i ii l A i#«ad iiia-edible series 
of intercultural encounters in early Ammi' 
can History. 

Stopping at the village of the Yoacoma- 
cos near the site of the future St. Mary's 
<lty,-flBet-^eov«Jred,^ hm horror, '■tfwrt, 
by reason of my absence, the Indians had 
not preserved their beaver, but burned it, 
as the custom is." Fleet wrote that the 
Indians of southern Maryland had "no use 
fll'lMiiF'it [beaver], being not aeeufltemM 
to take pains to dress it and make coats of 



Present at the "Creedion" 



11 



it." However, in the next year, Fleet would 
teach these "savages" the fine points of pelt 
preservation, so that the "civilized" citiz«ns 
of England could have the hats and collars 
they craved/^ 

When Fleet returned to the Potomac the 
following spring, as he had promised to do, 
he found that a rival trader, Charles Har- 
mar/Harman of Accomac, had just "cleared 
both sides of the river," taking some fifteen 
hundred pounds of pelts back to the East- 
ern Shore. After receiving 114 pelts as a 
goodwill offering from the Piscataway 
tayac, Fleet journeyed up to the Nacotch- 
tanks and traded for eight hundred pounds 
of beaver. This Iroquoian tribe was allied 
with the Massawomekes ("Cannyda Indi- 
ans," almost certainly the League Iroquois) 
and acted as middlemen for them in the 
Potomac trade. From May to August 1632, 
Fleet obtained' % ^iwieft -of ethnographic 
information while anchored near the Na- 
cotchtank village. He learned that a week's 
journey beyond the falls of the Potomac 
lived a tribe of thirty thousand people, di- 
into ifear towns (Tonhoga/Toh(^, 
Mosticum, Shaunetowa, Usserahak), and 
possessed of an "infinite store" of the rich- 
est coat beaver. Fleet managed to trade for 
eighty pelts from this unknown tribe before 
the Nacotchtanks jealously blocked his ac- 
cess to the bounty from the hinterland. In 
July 1632 he was approached by represen- 
tatives from a still stranger, and equally- 
unknown, tribe calkd the "Herekeenes." 
Wearing beaver coaits aiifl "sMits wtth 'r§a 
fringe, the Herekeenes also came from a 
fur-rich land and seemed willing enough to 
trade.^* 

Fleet had stumbled upon the pelt-man's 
Eldorado in 1632, but, although he sowed 
the seeds for future friendships, he was 
prevented from capitalizing on his contacts 
because of local ^So&Sm^tYmiH 1^ 
Nacotchtanks and of the Virginians. In Au- 
gust Fleet's trade was interdicted by 
Charles Harmar and his friends on the 
governor's council at Jamestown. Taken 
there after collecting "only" ffSd'^teWh'^ 
pelts, but with the expectation of getting 
six thousand pounds the next year. Fleet 
found "divers envious people" on the Coun- 
cil of State. Although he was "not minded 
My fortunes at the disposing 
erf the Got^rnor," Fleet di«j©^ered tbert all 



the officials were "desirous to be a partner 
with me." One in particular — Governor 
John Harvey — treated Fleet with "unex- 
pected courtesy" and secured for him a 
special trading license, giving him "free 
power to dispose of myself." Harvey per- 
haps joined with Fleet at this tim© in a 
partnership that sponsored voyag^s'tb l^fe^w 
England, Madeira, and Teneriffe, as well as 
the Bay, for Harvey authorized him to keep 
(i.e., steal) the Warwick. The trade goods 
and the bark that Griffith and Comj^m^ 
had entrusted to Henry Fleet in 16Si W^rt 
never returned to them, thanks to the spe- 
cial circumstances and alluring opportuni- 
ties of the Chesapeak*,* ' 

Claiborne's involvement with the fur 
trade began as early as 1627. In April of 
that year he obtained a commission from 
Governor Yeardley to launch an expedition 
"for discoverie of the BottftfcafBif ^Sa»^ 
and to trade with any Indians for "furrs, 
skinns come or any other comodities." This 
is the first Virginia document that places 
furs before maize in the list of desired com- 
modities, revealing th* "confidence of 
Jamestown officials that the colony was no 
longer in imminent danger of famine. In 
1629 Claiborne received the exclusive right 
from his fellow councilors to treat with the 
Susquehannocks, the keys to a' fSt&t HoTth- 
ern fur network. That Claiborne appreci- 
ated the essential role that Indians had to 
play for a success^l fur trade is revealed in 
his attempts to monopolize native int«r- 
preters in Virginia. In 1626 he h&d'beefl 
granted a patent of sorts by the Council 
because he had "invented [a method] for 
safe keepinge of tlStJ^I^Mians . . . and . .■■^ 
way] to make them serviceable."^^ 

Having attained a knowledge of the Bay 
and the potential for trade, the support of 
his colleagues on the council, and the con- 
fidence dP%h«!'««Sfi4e«!jfeir<6ek*, ^^ome 
lacked only a source of capital. He had little 
difficulty obtaining that in late 1630 or 
early 1631 while on a trip to England. Clai- 
borne's timing was perfect, for in 1629 the 
English had captured Quebec in a war with 
France, and beaver fever spread throughout 
the London merchant community after the 
Canada Company brought home some 
three hundred thousand pounds of pelts in 
1630. Two Men im)^iftltfk'»-»kft-Olw«- 
(fian trade— Willi«Hn Cteberry, Fleet's old 



12 



Maryland HiiSTObical Magazine 



sponsor, and Maurice Thomson, a former 
resident of Virginia and brother-in-law of 
CGuncillor William Tucker of Kecough- 
tan — now became Claiborne's principal 
partners in a joint stock association for 
Chesapeake furs." 
Claiborne began his trade on a grand 
in 1631. He and his London connec- 
tions had invested £1319 in hiring and out- 
fitting the Africa, stocking it with provi- 
sions, trade goods, and twenty indentured 
•trvants for the initial voyage. He had a 
Kberally-worded trading license (dated 16 
May 1631) under Charles I's signet of Scot- 
land, secured from Sir William Alexander, 
secretary for Scotland, proprietor of Nova 
Scotia, and a principal figure in the capture 
of Quebec. And he had four islands in the 
upper Bay that would become the basis of 
his fur empire: Kent Island, the largest, was 
located some 120 miles from Jamestown 
and would serve as Claiborne's "capital"; 
Palmer's Island, located at the mouth of 
the Susquehanna River, was a long-favored 
trading ground for the Susquehannocks 
1^ ^iNSiHld be the focus of exchange with 
them; and Claiborne's and Popeley's is- 
lands, located near Kent Island, which were 
used to store hogs.^* 

. Claiboroe's was a. most ambitious en- 
desaiVOT. Mfe-fead' several dozen people work- 
ing out of, and living on, Kent Island at 
any one time. Traders, sailors, interpreters 
(including a black man who lived with the 
&il»piehannocks), and rangers — enough to 
man! four vessels simultaneously — followed 
the seasonal cycle of the American beaver, 
collecting furs from March through June 
that had been taken the winter before. The 
men in the field were supported by farmers, 
shipbuilders, coopers, millwrights and mill- 
ers, hog-keepers, cooks, washerwomen, and 
at least one Anglican clergyman. Kent Is- 
land had a fort, storehouses, cabins, two 
mills, the first Anglican church north of the 
James River, and a shipyard, where Clai- 
borne's people built the trading pinnaces, 
Long Tail and Firefly, and the shallop, 
Stort}^ 

The Susquehannocks welcomed Clai- 
borne's operation because they could mar- 
ket their furs in the relative safety of the 
Chesapeake without fear of interference 

over the years, they mmm.n€d p^dictsMfe 



and profitable partners. While Kent Island 
was occasionally attacked by Eastern Shore 
tribes jealous of the trade that passed them 
by, nothing of the sort had to be feared 
from the Susquehannocks. They and Clai- 
borne's men formed an intercultural inter- 
est group based on a ijiutualljj beneficial 
trade and enjoyed the'ti^M'p^^lvC Anglo- 
Indian relationship in the early seven- 
teenth century. According to one of Clai- 
borne's interpreters, the Susquehannocks 
originally suggested that the English jstab- 
lish a permanent base on Palmer's IsilHid. 
When the Virginians from Kent Island fi- 
nally did so, the "king of the Susquehan- 
noes . . . did come with a great number of 
his Councellors and great Men and with all 
theire consents did give . . . Claiborne . . . 
Palmers Island with a greate deale of Land 
more." In addition, the "king did cutt some 
trees upon the said Iland, and did cause his 
people to cleare some ground for . . . Clai- 
borne to plant his corne upon that yeare." 
Many observers reported how the "Indians 
exceedingly seemed to love . . . Clayborne" 
and "would sooner trade wilti . . . [him] 
then with any other." Over several decades, 
the Susquehannocks remained ever-faith- 
ful to Claiborne, long after his active trad- 
ing ended. As late as July 1652, Claiborne's 
siqjporters wMW arrtef&atWMtty with the 
"Nation and State of Sasquehanogh," in 
which the Susquehannocks signed over ex- 
tensive territory to the English, "Excepting 
the He of kent, and Palmers Iglands which 
belongs to Captaine Claybome."*' 

The Chesapeake beaver trade brought 
Englishmen and Indians together in the 
most direct and intense form of cultural 
contact short of war, and yet it allowed, in 
fact demanded, that Indians remain Indi- 
ans pursuing the skills they knew best with- 
out fear of territorial dispossession and that 
Englishmen remain Englishmen perform- 
ing the services they understood without 
pressure to become Christian crusaders. 
The quest for the thick and heavy pelts of 
Castor canadensis created a trans-Atlantic 
liBllW i ^ gttgfeBfetg ^oii>#te4>«ftverdaiH!S of 
^Mltoiica to the docks of London. The cru- 
cial point of exchange between Castor and 
the capitalist occurred when the Indian 
trapper met the English trader, and for at 
least (xm^ m^ammtmf %hs^ nwltt^* mu- 
tua%-iiTtell^bk language that tran- 




A Susquehannock warrior, from Theodor de Bry's 1634 engraving of Captain John Smith's original 
and more accurate 1612 map of the Chesapeake. European engravers took more liberties with Native 
American subject matter in each new edition and with every new rendition, but the awesomeness of 
the fierce, proud Susquehannocks is still conveyed by this portrait. From Historiae Amerkanae: 
Decima Tertia Pars [Frankfurt, 1634]. (Photo courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society.) 



scended cultural differences. The fur trade 
united Englishmen and Indians in a coop- 
erative, symbiotic partnership of mutual 
benefit across a contact frontier with no 
territorial or cultural boundaries; ironi- 
cally, however, it divided Englishmen from 
other Englishmen and Indians from other 
Indians in a fiercely competitive struggle 
for lands, markets, and trade goods. 

Virginia in general and Claiborne in par- 
ticular were two victims of this competitive 
struggle over the resources of the Bay. Both 
had succeeded too well in their activities 
and invited competitors who learned of 
their success. The colony of Virginia grew 



the 1622 Powhatan Uprising to some five 
thousand persons by 1634. In that latter 
year, the colonists had two thousand head 
of cattle, a surplus of maize for export to 
New England, regular tobacco harvests of 
a half-million pounds, and many fine es- 
tates that were the tangible symbols of 
success. Claiborne's elaborate preparations 
and largescale operation brought in 7488 
pounds of beaver pelts (worth £4493 at 12 
s./lb.), 6348 pounds of tobacco (worth £106 
at 4 d./lb.), 2843 bushels of maize (worth 
£568 at 4 s./bushel), and £124 in cash from 
the sale of meat and livestock in the six 
years before Kent Island's takeover by 
Maryland in 1638.^' 



14 



Maryland Hitr^^lei!^ Ma6a»ne 



Knowing Your Neighbors 

Those Indians that I have convers'd withaU here in this Province of Mary-Land . . . 
are called by the name of Susquehanocks, being a people lookt upon by the Christian 
Inhabitants, as the most Noble and Heroick Nation of Indians that dwell upon the 
confines of America; also are so allowed and lookt upon by the rest of the Indians, by 
a submissive and tributary acknowledgement; being a people cast into the mould of a 
most large and Warlike deportment, . . . treading on the Earth with as much pride, 
contempt, and disdain ... as can be imagined from a creature derived from the same 
mould and Earth. 

The Warlike Equipage they put themselves in when they prepare for . . . March, is 
with their faces, armes, and breasts confusedly painted, their hair greazed with Bears 
oyl, and stuck thick with Swans Feathers, with a wreath or Diadem of black and white 
Beads upon their heads, a small Hatchet . . . stuck in their girts behind them, and 
either with Guns, or Bows and Arrows. In this posture and dress they march out from 
their Fort, or dwelling, to the number of Forty in a Troop, singing . . . the Decades or 
Warlike exploits of their Ancestors, ranging the wide l^iMtMIViifiliif kim met 
with an Enemy worthy of their Revenge. 

— George Alsop, A Character of the Province of Mary-Land (LoadoB, 
1666) 



Ironically, all the disasters that befell 
Claiborne were in some measure the result 
of his pioneering successes in the Chesa- 
peake fur trade. As debates in the Maryland 
AsBemfc4y revealed, the profit potential 
from the Indian trade "was the main and 
chief encouragement of . . . [Maryland's] 
Lord Proprietarie to undertake the great 
charge and hazard pfplanting this Proymce 
and W ^f^uttfe ^ ^ntte H i rtm «pl . . . mst 
adventurers to come therein." Early pro- 
motional tracts for Maryland advertised 
the fur trade, and it was the belief of many 
contemplating investment that "furres 
alone will largely requite . . . [the] adven- 
ture." Father Andrew White, even before 
he sailed for America, in 1633 commented 
upon rumors that a Potomac River trader 
had, only the year before, "exported beaver 
skins to the value of 40,000 gold crowns, 
and the pm&k.. . . m-M^smnii^ st.j^jplir- 
fold."22 

The granting of the Maryland chatter -te 
Cecil Calvert in 1632, and the subsequent 
arrival of the first colonists (at least partly 
encouraged by the beaver trade), was the 
most serious threat to the future of Virginia 

e(^ict would div^ "Leek" {torn 



"Rachel," the sister colonies of the Chesa- 
peake, for the next quarter century. 

Contrary to all predictions emanating 
from London, the Virginians had created a 
successful society on the streng^ of ad- 
dictive weeds and on the backs of forest 
rodents. Considered "odious or contempti- 
ble" by their countrymen across the ocean, 
Claibojrne and his cpntemgoraries had fash- 
y^eS a^bwS vsidae ^wt^' Wised cm the 
freedom of the self-made man and prided 
themselves in the belief that an immigrant 
could arrive in the Chesapeake "as poore 
as any Souldier" and earn "more in one 
yeare than [was possible] ... by Piracie in 
seven," provided he learned the important 
lessons that the Indians and the experi- 
enced ei^nists had to teach.^' 

It was such "Planters, who . . . [had been] 
constrained both to fight and worke for 
their lives, & subsistence," and who had 
"thereby preserved the Colony from de- 
struction and at least restored her td pence 
and plentie" that Lord Baltimore was 
forced to contend with in establishing 
Maryland. The level and longevity of hos- 
tilities between contending Englishmen in 
the Chesapeake can only be appreciated if 
the Virginians' de^-seated feelings of un- 



Present &t't^ "Creation" 



15 



I fairness and betrayal are understood. After 
they "had discovered and brought the In- 
dians of those parts ... to a trade of Corne 
and Bever . . . with expense of our bloud 
' and estate," a king who had never seen 
America bestowed a princely grant of ter- 
ritory and authority on an English Catholic 
lord who would never visit, and knew little 
^bout, the Chesapeake.^* 
' When the Maryland colonists arrived in 
the Chesapeake in February 1634, they "ex- 
pected little from [the Virginians] but 
I blows." Claiborne and the other powerful 
councilors, feeling "bound in duty by our 
Oaths to Maintaine the Rights and Privi- 
leges of this Colony," held out scant hope 
for reconciliation and preferred to "knock 
their cattell on the heads" than to sell 
livestock to Calvert's people. In July 1634, 
Governor Harvey arrested Claiborne and 
charged him with "animating, practising, 
and conspiring with the Indians to supplant 
I and cutt . . . ofT the Marylanders. A con- 
ference attended by Harvey, Leonard Cal- 
vert, Indian chieftains of the Potomac 
River area, and other principals was held 
to iron out the difficulties, but hostility 
ff&m the Virginia beaver trade*! t&S&tmdi 
unabated. One contemporary reported that 
1 those angry men intended to "wring [Mary- 
I land] out of the hands both of the Indians 
and Christians . . . [and] become Lords of 
( that Country. "^IfWarted at every turn and 
eventually thrown out of office by his pow- 
erful councilors, Harvey, too, by 1635 was 
convinced that members of the Claiborne 
clique "intend[edl no less than the subjec- 
tion of Maryland."^® 

To counter such overt hostility from 
other Englishmen, Lord Baltimore's colo- 
nists were quick to initiate, and careful to 
maintain, firm and friendly alliances with 
the Indians of the Potomac and Patuxent 
rivers. Survival in the face of powerful ene- 
mies made such a policy necessary, but 
current theories made it attractive. C!6?(lfifl- 
ering the tragic failures of policy repre- 
sented by the bloody Anglo-Powhatan 
War, Sir William Alexander, the royal of- 
ficial who granted Claiborne his trading 
license, in 1624 had advised that English- 
men should "possesse themselves" of Amer- 
ican lands "without dispossessing . . . oth- 
for the "ruine" of Indians "could give 
us neither glory nor benefit." The next year, 



Sir Francis Bacon similarly advocated 
"plantation in a pure soil; that is, where 
people are not displanted, . . . for else it is 
rather an extirpation than a plantation."^® 

In approaching colonization with the 
careful introspection of philosophers, Cecil 
and Leonard Calvert chose to be tutored by 
a master of Indian diplomacy — Henry 
Fleet. Considering that his "hopes and fu- 
ture fortunes depended upon the tfWB^ Sftfl 
traffic that was to be had of this river [the 
Potomac] ," Fleet threw his lot in with the 
first Maryland colonists and helped them 
get their relations with local Indians off to 
a promising start. Governor Calvert was 
careful to dispense gifts to, and hold con- 
ferences with, area werowances to avoid 
suspicion and misun de^iiMlc fap', «i mm 
the custom with the beaver traders of the 
Bay, and his purchase of Yoacomaco lands 
upon which St. Mary's City was built fol- 
lowed the example of Claiborne in his ear- 
lier purchase of ^eirt^ftli^.^^ 

Information about and experience with 
the local conditions of the Chesapeake pro- 
vided the main insurance against immedi- 
ate disaster for the passengers of the Ark 
^Doue. Although Father White beifeVed 
it ^^le^ous or miraculous that the Indi- 
ans of southern Maryland so easily 
"yeeld[ed] themselves" to the Calvert col- 
onists upon their arrival, the reaction of 
the Yoacomacos was entirely predictable, 
as the experienced Fleet was undoubtedly 
aware. 

The Yoacomacos, other Piscataways, the 
Patuxents, and the Maryland colonists des- 
perately needed one other, for they had all 
experienced the hostility of the Virginians 
and had much to fear from powerful and 
ftir-rich neighbors, both Indiltt 'lftBi iMg- 
lish. Piscataways and Patuxents looked to 
Calvert's colonists to protect them from the 
Susquehannocks and the Iroquois, while 
Maryland officials saw the local, peaceful 
tribes as buffers against a YtdUtt trf e*(Krtrii!s8. 
The alliance between peoples with a shared 
vulnerability worked well for many years, 
and the authors of A Relation of Maryland 
(1635) reported that "expeiriesice hath 
taught tirfJBfti^ kind' amd fisfee us«^, fhe 
Natives are not onely become peaceable, 
but also friendly, and have upon all occa- 
sions performed as many friendly ^§Si^^ 
to the English in Maryland ... as any 



m 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



neighbour ... in the most Civill pjarts of 
Christendome."* 

While the hostilities between Virginia 
and Maryland continued to demonstrate to 
what an extent the seventeenth-century 
Chesapeake was not one of "the most Civill 
parts of Christendome," relations between 
Marylanders and their trading Indians, and 
between Virginians and their trading Indi- 
Mk, were always peaceful and positive. The 
Chesapeake beaver trade continued to alter 
the perceptions and lifestyles of individual 
colonists for many years, accelerating the 
process of mutual adaptation and accultur- 
«tiwt^ bet<ff» < ;a fingMimen and Indians. 
Colonists fresh off the boat quickly dis- 
carded the idea of a "frontier" as the rigid, 
ethnocentric boundary between "civilized 
Englishmen" and "savage Indians" when 
Itonc^t, pragmatic commerce was at stake. 

The Marylanders began their quest for 
furs almost immediately after arriving in 
1634. Shares in a fur trading joint stock, 
Jtnown as "Lord Baltimore and Company," 
were quickly sold, and the Calverts estab- 
lished a system of licenses for independent 
traders, reserving ten percent of all returns 
to themselves. A supply ship arrived at St. 
Mary's City in December 1634 laden with 
a king's ransom in trade goods; one thou- 
sand yards of cloth, thirty-five dozen 
wooden combs and seventeen dozen of 
horn; three hundred pounds of brass ket- 
tles; six hundred axes; thirty dozen hoes; 
forty dozen hawks' bells, and forty-five 
gross of Sheffield knives, in addition to 
other items. Because they had an opportu- 

traders in the Bay, and because they had 
legal authority over the best fur areas, the 
Marylanders, for a few years at leag^^pfiCMK- 
pered as they had expected to.^^ 

'Henry ¥^et, Leenerd Calvert, Thomiis 
Cornwallis, and Jerome Hawley were just a 
few of the prominent early colonists who 
entered the beaver trade. The Jesuit fathers 
also participated through their factors, Cy- 
prian Thorowgood and Robert Gierke. In 
May 1638, Captain Thorowgood brought 
one hundred pounds of beaver pelts to 
Father Philip Fisher (Thomas Copley, 
Esq.) and was immediately sent out again 
with forty yards of trade cloth, valued at 
pow^M i^llme^ %mmal eoteiMii 



owed Father Fisher sums as high as £200 
sterling, and among the Jesuits' indentured 
servants were Henry Bishop, an inter- 
preter, and Mathias de Sousa, the famous 
mulatto, who frequently iH ii Wt tjii^pMlg 
Susquehannocks. 

Very quickly, beaver pelts and native 
beadwork, called roanoke and peake, found 
their way into the official records of estate 
inventories and court cases. Tlba^ AMfn ri- 
valled tobacco and maize as "country com- 
modites" of great significance in the colo- 
nists' daily lives and give some indication 
to what an extent early Marylanders were 
adapting to thei? mew Mivironment. In 
1643-44 alone, the Maryland records indi- 
cate that a total of six hundred arms' 
lengths of roanoke were demanded by cred- 
itors in seven separate debt cases. In those 
years, roanoke had a value of between Is. 
8d. and 2s. 4d. per arms' length, seven- to 
ten-times more valuable than a pound of 
tobacco. In 1643-44 also, over 5700 pounds 
of beaver pelts were mentioned in debt 
cases, at a time when one pound was worth 
between 12s. and 24s., or from 36 to 144 
pounds of tobacco. Beaver prices in this 
two-year period were two to three times 
higher than they had been only five years 
before, whereas tobacco prices remained 
relatively stable (and low) at 3 to 4 peace 
per pound.^' (See Table 1.) 

Beads «i*d beaver pelts were quickly 
adopted as popular currencies in the spe- 
cie-poor Chesapeake colonies because of 
their value and portability. In 1643 Thomas 
Comwalleys specifically demanded 268 
pmindfi of beaver pelts, 48 Armfi* ^enftiw of 
roanoke, and 11 arms' lengths of peake from 
John Hollis for payment of a debt. Hollis 
in turn brought suit against a carpenter for 
13 pounds of beaver pelts and 67 arms' 
lengths of roanoke, which the latter had 
purchased from an "Apamatuck Indian" for 
"hott waters" and an axe. On more than 
one occasion, colonists found themselves so 
deeply in debt for beaver pelts that they 
mortgaged, or had to put up as security, a 
large portion of their property.^^ 

The country commodities associated 
with the beaver trade frequently appeared 
in inventories of the 1630s and 1640s. 
There was a certain irony in expressing the 



Present at the "Creation" 



17 



1, ' Adapting to the "Custombs of ouk Counthey" 

• • • [W]e usually trade in a shallop or small pinnace, being 6 or 7 English men 
encompassed with two or 300 Indians .... Two or 3 of the men must looke to the 
trucke that the Indians doe not steale it, and a great deale of the trucke is often stole 
by the Indians though we look never soe well to it; alsoe a great parte of the trucke is 
given oway^ jtp f/ie Ifings and great men for presents; and eommonly one third part of 
the same is sperk for victualls, and upon other occaMons. And that the usuall manner 
of that trade is to shew our trucke, which the Indians wilbe very long and teadeous in 
viewing, and doe tumble it and tosse it and mingle it a hundred times over soe that it 
is impossible to keepe the severall parceUs a sunder. And if any traders will not suffer 
the Indians soe to doe they wilbe distasted with the said traders and fall out with 
them and refuse to have any trade. And that therefore it is not convenient or possible 
to keepe an account in that trade for every axe knife or string of beades or for every 
yard of cloath, especiallie because the Indians trade not by any certeyne measure or 
by our English iWifii i is and measures. Mmi ' ^M l lkm vmy fBWiigWfer>^iiwiwr fee 
written downe by it selfe distinctly. Wherefore all traders find that it is impossible to 
keepe any other perfect account then att the End of the voiadge to see what is sold 
and what is gained and what is lefte. 

'C» i if » jUmfamtMy ^f v« jSmsIb - Mmud beaver tarader, Uigh Court of Adam- 
ralty, 4 ftovMiber 1639 

The 10th of July [1632], about one o'clock we discerned an Indian on the other 
side of the fPotometeJ Jsker, who with a shrill sound, cried, "^^.QttoliQm!," holding 
up a beaver skin upon a pole. I went ashore to him, who then gave me the beaver skin, 
with his hatchet, and laid down his head with a strange kind of behavior, using some 
few words, which I learned, but to me it was a foreign language. I cheered him, told 
him he was a good man, and clapped him on the breast with my hands. Whereupon 
he started up, and used some cem^&imittil ipeeyi, leaving his things wilM nm rm up 
the hill. 

Within the space of half an hour, he returned, with five more, one being a woman, 
and an interpreter, at which I rejoiced, and so I expressed myself to them, showing 
them courtesies. These were laden with beaver, and came from a town called Ussera- 
hak, where were seven thousand Indians. I carried these Indians aboard, and traded 
with them for their skins. They drew a plot of their country, and told me there came 
with them sixty canoes . . . . I had but little [ to trade], . . . and such as was not fit for 
these Indians to trade with, who delight in hatchets, and knives of large size, broad- 
cloth, and coats, shirts, and Scottish stockings. The women desire bells, and some kind 
ofbeads. 

— Capt. Henry Fleet, "A Brief Journal of a Voyage to Virginia," 163 1— 

32 



in terms of raw goods right off a beaver's 
back. When John Baxter died in 1638, his 
possessions were sold at auction. His seven 
suits of clothes brought 46 pounds of beaver 
pelts, while his 28 pairs of shoes fetched 
another 14 pounds. A ream of writing pa- 



per, symbolic of the superiority that literate 
Englishmen assumed over Indians and 
less-educated countrymen, was sold for a 
one-pound pelt, one half the-^tie of Mr. 
Baxter's coffin. The 1638 inventory of Wil- 
liam Smith of St. Mary's City revealed that 



18 



Maryland Histq-bical Magazine 



Table I. 

Beaver and Bead Values in the Chesapeake Relative to Tobacco 





Beaver pelts 


Peake 


Roanoke 


Tobacco 


Year 


(price per lb.) 


(pec f»Aflil^._ 




(per lb.) 


1633 Va. 


7-9s. (84-108d.) 






4-9d. 


1634 Va. 


10s. (120d.) 


10s. (120d.) 




4-6d. 


1636 Va. 


6s. 6d.-10s. (78-120d.) 






4-8d. 


1638 Md. 


7s. 6d.-8s. (90-96d.) 


7s. 6d. (90d.) 


Is. (12d.) 


3d. 


1643 Md. 


12s.-25s. (144-300d.) 




Is. 8d.-2s. 6d. (20-30d.) 


2-34 


1644 Md. 


24s. (288d.) 




2s. 4d. (28d.) 


4d. 



Virginia values (all Eastern Shore) are found in Susie M. Ames, ed. County Court Records of 
Accomack-Northampton, Virginia 1632-1640 (Washington, D.C., 1954), 16-17, 74. 

Maryland values come from Archiues of Maryland, III, 67-68, 73, 78; IV, 48, 84-89, 103-05, 214, 
227, 274. 

Tobacco prices are based on Russell R. Menard, "A Note on Chesapeake Tobacco Prices, 1618- 
lHO," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 84 (Oct. 1976), 404-407. 



his mmkmpmat, wr^ i% yeere-lw -sflm, 
was worth £3 — only half of what his sev- 
enteen pounds of beaver pelts were ap- 
praised at. When Capt. Robert Wintour 
died in Maryland, the largest single item in 
an estate worth ll.^i^ilAJWtotmcco 
was his 28 pounds of beaver, valued at 1120 
pounds of tobacco. Everjrthing, and every- 
body, it seems, had a price in beads and 
beavpr. Ip, 1643 native beads perhaps en- 

as a Mary- 
land widow accused her neighbor of having 
"lyen with an Indian for peake or roanoke." 
The following year, Richard Bennett, a Vir- 
ginia Puritan, sold Thomas Comwglleys, a 
Maryland Catholic, two 6ter6*'^efVliritl for 
97 pounds of beaver pelts and some cash, 
giving new definition to the "skin" trade.^^ 

Soon after the arrival of the first Mary- 
land colonists in 1634, a local Indian in- 
formed Leonard Calvert that, as strangers 
to the Chesapeake, they "should rather con- 
forme your selves to the Customes of our 
Countrey, then impose yours upon us." It 
was most valuable advice — advice that the 
beaver traders of the region knew and 
understood best. Those Englishmen who 
before and after 1634 were actively involved 
in intense, face-to-face trading relation- 
ships based on mutual trust and reciprocal 
kindnesses were the ones who most quickly 
learned to "conforme ... to the Customes" 
of the region. The fur trade was the one 
arena in which the native population had 
the advantage and called the shots; iSeemise 
it was a seller's market, based upon the 
skills of the Indian trapper and dependent 



ttpoM Ae sMisiietkm of the IndiflSi *con- 
sumer," the beaver trade forced the English 
in the Chesapeake to adapt themselves to 
native ways, to learn "foreign" dialects in 
Algonquian and Iroquoian, and to ^dhere 
to the importtift'*^»Wrt5%:r'l*tt « ex- 
change.^"* 

Decades of experience, of lessons learned, 
of innumerable human relationships that 
crQi^sed ethnic and racial lines, of adapta- 
tfdfe'tb the peoples and the products of the 
Bay, constituted the unseen, but infinitely 
important, resources of the Chesapeake 
that greeted the first Maryland colonists. 
All were present at the "creation" of the 
colony, all were part of a now-accepted 
routine of New World life that had to be 
grasped, appreciated, and adapted to. The 
purchase of the first beaver pelt and the 
first harvest of tobacco and maize were only 
small steps in a continuous series of adjust- 
ments that would determine success or fail- 
ure in this old land new to the English, but 
crucial early steps among many adaptations 
that slowly, irrevocably transformed Eng- 
lish colonists into Americans. | 

References 

1. Andrew White, S.J., "A Briefe Relation of the 
Voyage Unto Maryland," 1634, in Clayton Colman 
Hall, ed., Narratives of Early Maryland (New 
York, 1910), 42; [John Lewger and Jerome Haw- 
ley], A Relation of Maryland (London, 1635), ibid., 
74. 

2. Cyprian Thorowgood, "A relation of a voyage 
made by Master Cyprian Thorowgood to the head 
of the baye," 1634, ms., [1]. Photostat of hand- 
written ms. of two folio pages at St. Mary's City 
Commission, St. Mary's City. 



Pl'meni-M the "Creation" 



19 



3. FljBK'If. PW«r III, Indians in Maryland and 
i^et&Hrh A tritical Bibliography (Bloomington, 
Ind., 1979), 37; Clifford M. Lewis, S.J., and Albert 
J. Loomie, S.J., The Spanish Jesuit Mission in 
Virginia, 1570-1572 (Chapel Hill, 1953), 3-26; 
[William Symonds, comp.]. The Proceedings of 
the English Cohnie in Virginia . . . from . . . 1606, 
till this present 1612 (Oxford, 1612), 28-40. 

4. Bruce G. Trigger, The Children c/ Aataentsic: A 
History of the Huron People to 1660, 2 vols. (Mon- 
treal, 1976), I, 305-08. See, ibid., 24-5, for a dis- 
cussion of inter-ethnic interest groups, and also, 
J. Frederick Fausz, "Profits, Pelts, and P^wse: 
The 'Americanization' of English Culture vA tile 
Chesapeake, 1620-1652," 7^ Mtf^^mtd Hkto- 
riara, 15 (Jan. 1984). '"^ 

5. See Cupt. John Smith, The Generatt Historic 
Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles 
(London, 1624), 112, 141-43; J. Frederick Fausz, 
"By Warre Upon Our Enemies, and Kinde Usage 
of Our Friends": The Beaver Trade and Interest 
Group Rivalry in the Development of the Chesa- 
peake, 1607-1652 (paper presented to the monthly 
colloquium, Institute of Early American History 
and Culture, Williamsburg, Nov. 1982; copy ®ii 
file). 

6. For the detailed data upon which this summit ie 
based, see J. Frederick Fausz, "The Powfait^ 

IfiS2: A Historical Study of Ethno- 
miw«^iM^ltural Conflict" (unpubl. Ph. D. 
6&m., Ceibge of William and Mary, 1977), chs. 5- 
7, S^^if^rederick Fausz, Authority and Oppor- 
tunity in the Early Chesapeake: The Bay Envi- 
ronment and the English Connection, 1620-1640 
(paper presented to the Organization of Amm^Hi 
Historians Annual Meeting, Cincinnati, Apr. 

T. -Mii, nenmX-Mkork&f Virginia, 155, 158; Su- 
san Ktegtbory, comp., Bmirda of the Vtr- 
ginki Cmtpmy efL^^m, 4 vok. (Wa^^^xm, D. 
C, 19@&-ltte), IV, 10, §07 iimM&er as 
VCR); J. Frederick Fausz aad J<on WakiA, eds., "A 
LettM: of Advice to ^ Govemw of Vkginit, 
1«24,'' WMmn mtd Mtay Qumferly, Sd §m., 
XXXIV (1977), 108, m (iHinaf^ cited as 
WMQ)- 

3. Smith, Generall Historic @f Virfinia, 150; FaiMK, 
"PonAiafam Uprising,' 467-481; Irene Windietrter 
Duekwofth Hecht, "The Vk|^^ Coki^, 1807- 
le^d" (unpiM. 1%. D. Univ. of WMMREton, 
1969), 199, 356-57; Edmund S. Kfergan, "The 
First American Boom: Vir^itte 1618 to 1630," 
WMQ, 3d Ser., XXVIII (1971), 177. 

9. Coi»icil in Virginia to Vwiisia CoaqMuiy, 30 Jan. 
imif^l, 'm KiAi^uiy, eom|>., VCR, IV, 450-51; 
RdbMft Beimett te Mwiwd Bennett, 9 June Mt8, 
Aid., iSO-Sl; ¥$mm, "Pewh«»i qprinng," <ii4- 
99, Stitr-Ofi: Jwmes H. Meiwll, "Cuhurid Conti- 
n^t^ aaMng tiie Wmmxmt^ In^aras ef CoimM 
Maryland," Wm, 9d Ser., XXXVI (19^^, 554. 

10. C&tmmmm &[ Gov. Wyatt to Ral^ Ilaaaor, 19 
Jan. 1828/24, in Kingsbury, comp., WR, IV, 4«. 

11. Court Minutes, 8 Nov. 1624, H. R. Mcllwaine, 
comp., Minutes of the Council and General Court 
of Colonial Virginia (Richmond, 1924, 1979), 29- 
30. 



12. Edward D. Neill, The Founders of Maryland As 
Portrayed in Manuscripts, Provincial Records and 
Early Documents (Albany, 1876), 11-13. For bio- 
graphical details on Fleet, see Annie Lash Jester 
and Martha Woodroof Hiden, eds.. Adventurers 
of Purse and Person: Virginia, 1607-1625 (Prince- 
ton, 1956), 172-174, and Harry Wright Newman, 
The Flowering of the Maryland Palatinate (Wash- 
ington, D. C, 1961), 204-09. 

13. Capt. Henry Fleet, "A brief Journal of a Voyage 
made in the bark 'Warwick' to Virpnia a^ other 
parts of the continent of Amwict* (tfiiiy 1631— 
j^ l ^^to er 1632), in Neill, Founders <^ MtUyland, 

14. Ibk, 22-33. 

15. ML, 33-37; Neill's introduction, 15-16. 

16. McItwMne, co»p., l^^/Mmivf Council of Colonial 
VirgbA, 111, 124, Wt, lH; 185; commissions in 
P. R. 0. Colonial Papers, Great Britain, in Wil- 
liam Hand Browne et aL, eds.. Archives of Mary- 
land, 72 vols, to date (Baltimore, 1883— ), V, 
158-161 (hereafter cited as Archives); Nathaniel 
C. Hale, Virginia Venturer. A Historical Biography 
of William Claiborne, 1600-1677 (Richmond, 
1951), ch. 6. For biographical details on Claiborne, 
see Hale, passim, and Jester and Hiden, eds.. 
Adventurers of Purse and Person, 131-135. 

17. Robert P. Brenner, "Commercial Change and Po- 
litical Conflict: The Merchant Community in 
Civil War London" (lupubl. Ph. D. diss., Prince- 
ton Univ., 1970), 102-113; Hale, Virginia Ven- 
turer, 140-47; court testimony in "Claiborne vs. 
Cloberry Et Als In the High Court of Admiralty," 
in Maryland Historical Magazine, XXVII (1932), 
17-28, 99-114, 205-214, and XXVIII (1933), 26- 
43, 172-195, 257-265, passim (hereafter cited as 
MHM); Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, II, 455- 
462. The timing of investment was crucial. Clai- 
bsTHe i^pecM to, and wtm teded by, raen in- 
V(4v«d 1^ ^1 too teoipemy trade in 
CMMtda, and by 1680 if not earlier such ra«;cliaats 

that the geverameat would re- 

turn Qb^ec to Frftnee, w^^h indeed hi^pened 
ti»0B#i the Treaty of SaAnt-CiMraMi-^-Laye in 
1632. The Ch ea a pedi e beaver trade seated to 
aueh men a k^eM aitnrtMitive for the future. 

18. Hale, Vb^ma Venturer, 148-187; "CNboi^ vs. 
Clrfj*Try,'* MHM, XXVHI (m&), 26-43, 172-195; 
Inch IMMC, *Kmit Mmd, Plat I: l^e Period of 
SfeH^wit," MHM, Ln (1957), 98-119. 

19. 'Ca*A©nie vs. Cloberry," MHM. XXVni (1933), 
172-liS; Isaac, "Keat ftland,' MHM, IM (1967), 
93-119; doeiMients from P. R. O. Ccrfomal Pl^rs, 
relating to Claftente's trade, in Arehiuw, V, 189- 
94, 197, 221-23, 231-34, pomcm. 

20. TettiBtony of John FuHwood of Kent Iiriand, in 
Arckh&y V, 231; tefttHHony (rf ThoBiae Youall of 
%mt kiond, ^ May 1640, V, 199; testimony 
Df C^pt. lUchffird of Che lee Mv^, Vir- 
ginia, Mi., 2S@; "Articles of Peace and freiRdshtpp 
[with the Susquehannocks]," 5 July 1652, Pro- 
ceedings of the Council of Maryland, ibid., Ill, 
277-78. 

21. Pausz, Authority and Opportunity, 9-11; Capt. 
John Smith, The True Travels, Adventures, and 
Observations of Captaine John Smith (London, 



20 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



1630), 42-44; MHM, XXVII (1932), 208-10, my 
computations. 

22. "An Act for Trade with the Indians," March 1639, 
in Archives, I, 42-43; John D. Krugler, ed., To 
Live Like Princes: "A Short Treatise Sett Downe 
in a Letter Written by R. W. [Robert WintourJ to 
His Worthy Freind C. J. R. concerning the New 
Plantation Now Erecting Under the Right 
Ho[nora]ble the Lord Baltemore in Maryland" 
(Baltimore, 1976), 36; [Lewger and Hawley], Re- 
lation of Maryland (1635), in Hall, ed.. Narratives 
of Early Maryland, 80, 90; [Andrew White, S. J.], 
"An Account of the Colony of the Lord (rf 
Baltamore," 1633, in Hall, ed., i^wii^^iNp^Wy 
Maryland, 8. 

23. Fausz, "Powhatan Uprising," ch. 7, passim; Vir- 
ginia Company petition to Privy Council, Apr. 
1625, in Kingsbury, VCR, M, Ht, lUi^ if'rue 
Travels, 60. 

2)4. [William Claiborne?], "A Declaration shewing the 
illegality and unlawful Proceedings of the Patent 
of Maryland" (ca. 1649), in Archives, V, 179-180, 
published as Virginia and Maryland, or, The Lord 
Baltamore's printed Case, uncased and answered. 
Shewing the illegality of his Patent, and Usurpa- 
tion of Royal Jurisdiction and Dominion there 
(London, 1655), in Hall, ed.. Narratives of Early 
Maryland, 187-230, esp. 189-90. See Fausz, Au- 
thority and Opportunity, and J. Frederick Fau.sz, 
The Secular Context of Religious Toleration in 
Maryland, 1620-1660 (paper presented to the 
Loyola College/St. Mary's College of Maryland, 
series, "The History of Religious Toleration," Oct. 
1983; publication forthcoming). 

25. Archives, III, 17-19, 22-23, 26-28, 32-33, 39; 

^ White, "Briefe Relation," in Hall, ed.. Narratives 
of Early Maryland, 33; Mcllwaine, comp., Minutes 
. of Council of Virginia, 481; "Capt. Thomas Yong's 
■ Voiyage to Virginia ... in 1634," in Aspinwall 



Papers, Massacl^uSf^ts Historical Society, Collec- 
tions, 4th Ser., 'm.i!p««ton, 1871), 102-103, also 
see 105-07. 

26. William Alexander, A n Encouragement to Colonies 
(London, 1624), 37-38; Sir Franci s ftm Pj "Of 
Plantations" (1625), in Henry Morfcs^K^wW^ 
of Bacon (Cleveland, n.d.), 72. 

27. Fleet, "Brief Journal," in Neill, ed.. Founders of 
Maryland, 35; White, "Briefe Relation," in Hall, 
ed., Narratives of Early Maryland, 41; [Lewger 
and Hawley], A Relation of Maryland, ibid., 71- 
77. 

28. [Lewger and Hawley], A Relation of Maryland, in 
Hall, ed.. Narratives of Early Maryland, 84. For a 
recent overview of Anglo-Indian relations in a 
larger context, see J. Frederick Fausz, "Patterns 
of Anglo-Indian Aggession and Accommodation 
Along the Mid-Atlantic Coast, 1584-1634," in 
William Fitzhugh, ed., Europeans and Native 
Americans: Early Contacts in Eastern North 
America (Washington, D. C, forthcoming). 

29. Garry Wheeler Stone, "Society, Housing, and Ar- 
chitecture in Early Maryland: John Ledger's St. 
John's" (unpubl. Ph. D.,m^t,^vm. M^mmyl- 
vania, 1982), 26-29. 

30. Archives, I, 41-42; III, 63, 67-68, 104, 258; IV, 34, 
42, 138. For a discussion of Jesuit relations with 
the Indians, see "Extracts from the Annual Let- 
ters of the English Province of the Society of 
Jesus . . . ," in Hall, ed., likmatkmi^^^g^Mary- 
iand, esp. 124-139. 

31. Tabulations based on Archives, IV, passim. 

32. Ibid., 35, 206, 214, 242, 283-84. 

33. Ibid., 48, 85-89, 103-05, 258, 304. 

34. [Lewger and Hawley], A Relation of Maryland, in 
Hall, ed., Narratives of Early Maryland, 90. See 
Fausz, "Patterns of Anglo-Indian Aggre^ma and 
Accommodation," and FauK, "By Waiie Upen 
Our Enemies." 



"With promise of Liberty in Religion": The 
Catholic Lords Baltimore and Toleration in 
Seventeenth— Century Maryland, 
1634-1692 

JOHN D. KRUGLER 



T^HE ORIGINS AND NATURE OF TOLERA- 

tion in Maryland were once controversial 
historiographical issues. Essentially, Mary- 
land historians have put forth two mu- 
tually-exclusive interpretations concerning 
toleration. The more popular interpreta- 
tion credited the Calverts with founding 
religious liberty in the New World. Indeed, 
r«^igious liberty became Maryland's raison 
d'etre. Generally, this interpretation main- 
tained that as a Roman Catholic, George 
Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore (?1580- 
1632), sought a religious haven for his per- 
secuted Catholic brethren. In seeking his 
goal, he reflected Catholic thinking on re- 
ligious toleration, most notably Sir Thomas 
More. Historians who argued for this inter- 
pretation seemed concerned with molding 
the events to fit the pre-conceived notion. 
Calvert's career in England was treated in 
a cursory fashion; it was sufficient that he 
had become a Roman Catholic. Relying 
primarily on the self-serving testimony of 



John D. Krugler is Associate Professor of History and 
Assistant Chairman of the History Department at 
Marquette University. He completed his Ph. D. in 
1971 at the University of Illinois, writing a dissertation 
on "Puritan and Papist: Politics and Religion in Mas- 
sachusetts and Maryland Before the Restoration of 
Charles 11." Earlier essays on religious history have 
appeared in the Maryland Historical Magazine, the 
Journal of Church and State, The Catholic Historical 
Review and The Historian. Dr. Krugler's other publi- 
cations include his edited and annotated work, To Live 
Like Princes: "A Short Treatise Sett Downe in a Letter 
Written by R. W. to His Worthy Freind C. J. R. 
concerning the New Plantation Now Erecting under 
the Right Hofnorajble the Lord Baltemore in Mary- 
land" (Baltimore: The Enoch Pratt Free Library, 
1976). He is presently working on a book "The Mary- 
land Designe": Lord Baltimore, His Maryland Colony, 
and English Catholics. 



Catholic priests and noting the apparently 
destructive penal legislation which aimed 
at curtailing Catholic activity, they pre- 
sented a bleak picture of Catholic life in 
England. The Lords Baltimore founded 
Maryland as a refuge for their fellow Cath- 
olics who were, in the words of one priest, 
"persecuted, proscribed, and hunted to 
death for their religion." In this interpre- 
tation, Maryland was primarily a "Land of 
Sanctuary."' 

A strongly contrasting interpretation 
also emerged. This interpretation denied 
any religious motivation on the part of the 
Calverts. These historians, frequently pro- 
Protestant and usually hostile to the Cal- 
verts, played down the importance of reli- 
gious toleration, ascribing it to mere expe- 
diency on the part of Lord Baltimore (as if 
doing something expedient were bad). In 
some instances, they attributed toleration 
to sources other than the Calverts.^ 

Neither interpretation of Maryland tol- 
eration is entirely satisfactory. But if the 
passions of the earlier polemics have dissi- 
pated, it is not because the contending dis- 
putes were resolved. Rather, Maryland his- 
torians turned their attention to other is- 
sues.^ This essay explores how and why, 
and with what degree of success, the Cath- 
olic Lords Baltimore became involved in 
the struggle to free the religious conscience 
from the dictates of the civil government. 
By examining not only the history of events 
in Maryland, where the policy of toleration 
was worked out, but also the history of 
events in England, <l^efT*-t3*e<M<wrts #9T^ 
mulated their policy, an interpretation 
emerges that takes into consideration their 
religion and their economic interests. 



Makyland HiSTeKiCAL Magazine 



22 



Maryland Historical Magazine 




Cecilius Calvert (1605-1675), Second Lord Baltimore (1632-1675), and First Lord Proprietor of Maryland. 
Mezzotint from life, Abraham Blooteling, 1657. (Courtesy, The Maryland Historical Society.) 



The Lords Baltimme and Tdmitim 



23 




A Contemporary Description of Cecil Lord B. 



[H]e is a man of excellent parts, who thoughe young hath given testimony to the 
world of a ripe judgmfenjt approved worth and solid vertue, noble, reall, courteous, 
affable, sharpe and quickwitted but not willfull, of a singular piety and zeale toward 
the conversion of those people, in his owne particular disinteressed, but strickly 
sollicitous of the common good, an excellent Master of his passions, of an innocent life 
and behaviour, free from all vices, nobly concerted of the businesse, one that doth not 
with vaine ostentations and empty promises goe about to entice all sorts of adventorors 
to make prey or benefitt of them, he knowes such a designe [for Maryland] when 
rightly understood will not want undertakers, but rather cautious and wary whom he 
admits into so noble a society without good recommendaftijons and knowledge of 
them to be free from any taints in life and manners, yet to those he thinke worthy he 
freely imparts him selfe and fortunes, making them so far as he can, his companions 
and free sharers in all his hopes: in fine such a man as all the adventorors may 
promise themselves with assured confidence all content and happines under this gov- 
ermfenjt wch to confirme he entends to crowne their wishes with his presence by 
transporting into those parts his owne person wife and children wth a number of noble 
welborne and able gentlemen that know by experience both how to obey and command, 
every one fitted with a brave adventure of choice men well fitted, cattell, and all other 
necessaries to settle such a colony as so worthy a designe deserves fj 



— From Robert Wintour's "Short Treatise . . . concerning the New Plan- 
tation Now Erecting under the Right Ho[nora]ble the Lord Baltemore 
in Maryland" (1635), modern edition edited by John D. Krugler. 



Neither George Calvert, the first Lord 
Baltimore, nor his son and successor Cecil 

I (1605-1675), envisioned Maryland primar- 
ily as a Catholic refuge. Both Lords Balti- 

i more fully expected^ttiat Mb far Catholics 
going to Maryland would be better than it 

' had been in England; but they also expected 
that this would hold true for their Protes- 
tant settlers. Colonization, after all, could 
hardly be sold on the basis that the settlers 
would be less well off than they had been 
in England. As Catholic gentlemen, the 

I Lords Baltimore set out to achieve a- gbii^' 
namely, to found a successful and prosper- 
ous colony, first in Newfoundland and then 
in Maryland. They achieved this goal, only 
after years of struggle against overwhelm- 
ii^ Mde^-'lsy making totefation a reaHtyim * 
their colony.^ 

In their colonizing efforts, the Catholic 

I Lords Baltimore were not attempting to 

j implement a philosophical position for 
which they te^fe* fefeiw' <feBfe*''iifi*iirt®ir 
Thomas More or Cardinal Robert Bellar- 



mine.^ Toleration was not so much a phil- 
osophical posture as a practical one.'' In the 
context of the alternatives they had, the 
Catholic Lords Baltimore saw religious tol- 
eftrtioh as a irieansto'acfccfrnplisfc their^oal 
of founding a successful colony, not as an 
end in itself. To succeed as Catholics, the 
Calverts recognized that every effort had to 
be made to miniisize relipous difier^ces, 
and especially thos^'whidt wotMcafll men- 
tion to their Cathohcism. The Catholic 
Lords Baltimore sought to found a colony 
■where Catholics and Protestants worked 
together to achieve an economically viable 
enterprise. In attempting this, they ran 
counter to the prevailing sentiments of 
their age. 

'■^Mmp^m^; irm fat mest of -ihe seven- 
teenth-century a refreshing oasis in an age 
in which the state or civil authority advo- 
cated coercion and persecution to achieve 
religious uniformity. In England, as else- 
where >m i<(»iMsHB«fMMi«iiir8>fl^P«pe, eivil 
peace and p^itical slaJjility reined om the 



! 



24 



Maryland HistorIoal Magazine 



belief that the subjects' religion must con^ 
form to that of the ruling monarch (cuius 
regio eius religio). After vacillating between 
CathoUc and Protestant establishments 
under Elizabeth I in 1559, the English gov- 
ernment sought to impose a degree of uni- 
formity on the religiously-splintered na- 
tion. Parliament, through a series of laws, 
decreed that all English men and women 
must worship in the Ecclesia Anglicana. 
The broadly based national church created 
by the Elizabethan religious settlement em- 
braced some of the theology of the more 
radical Protestant reformers, but also 
maintained much of the polity of the Cath- 
olic Church. Failure to comply with the 
religious penal laws subjected the violators 
to penalties ranging from small fines, to 
confiscation of property, to, in extreme 
cases, loss of life. Roman Catholic priests 
by their very presence in England were 
guilty of treason, a crime punishable by 
death. With the accession of James I in 
1603, Parliament passed, at the first oppor- 
tunity, the entire body of Elizabethan penal 
laws. After the Gimpowder Treason in 
1605, Parliament added new laws, iiK^tt^ft|^ 
the notorious oath of allegiance.^ 



"^"^^eifely related ^JT^^ptGKiple of reli- 
gious uniformity was another major tenet 
of Christian thinking, namely, that it was 
the duty of the magistrate, i.e., the mon- 
arch, to protect the true faith. Under Eng- 
lish law, the monarch was the "supreme 
governor" of the church and was responsi- 
ble for maintaining the church as it was 
established by law. It was the duty of kings, 
James I lectured his fellow monarchs in 
The Trew Laws of Free Monarchies (1^6), 
"to maintaine the Religion presently pro- 
fessed within theire countrie, according to 
their lawes, whereby it is established, and 
to punish all those that should presse to 
alter, or disturbe the profession thereof." 
In this way the ruler intimately bound to- 
gether the religious and civil institutions.* 
Not all parties in England accepted 
religious uniformity as the norm. The onus 
of the penal laws notwithstanding, a signif- 
icant minority of English men and women 
refused to accept the necessity of worship 
in the established church. Some persisted 
in worshipping as Catholics, while ze^iious 
Protestants, i.e., Puritans, agitated for 
greater reformation than provided for by 
the Elizabethan settlement. But the con- 



' M ' Ital^tkSWkWijjkLLKOIANCE, 1S06 

/ {name} do trdiy and sineerety «eknowli^^; prfBf^, testify; emti deeisfe' tn my 
conscience before God and the world, That our Sovereign Lord King James is lawful 
and rightful King of this Realm and of all other his Majesty's dominions and countries; 
and that the Pope, neither of himself, nor by any authority of the Church or See of 
Rome, or by any other means with any other, hMh,any power w mithority to depose 
the l&r^, orto tathorMe any flar^gninince to ftm^e or annoy M.fri thiliffco'ethmes, 
or to discharge any of his subjects of their allegiance and obedience to his Majesty, or 
to give licence or leave to any of them to bear arms, raise tumult, or to offer any 
I violence or hurt to his Majesty's Royal Person, State, or Government, or to any of his 
» i Majesty's subjects within his Majesty's dominions. . . . And I do further swear, That 
I do from my heart abhor, detest, and abjure, as impious arid ftetWxet,^Ms damnable 
doctrine and position, that princes which be excommunicated or deprived by the Pope ' 
may be deposed or murdered by their subjects or any other whatsoever: And I do j 
biMeve^wtd m my cormieikee^mR'Alkeimd^hm'^iil^her the Pope mf p»son I 
whatsoever hath power to absolve me of this oath or any part thereof, which I ■ 
I acknowledge by good and full authority to be lawfully ministered unto me, and do ' 
renounce all pardons and dispensations to the contrary: .... 

This oath of the reign of James I (1603—1625) was very similar in 
iiiiiiiiiHuDT'f - tbat required of the first Maryland co toilii i y hii«ee their 
departure fr<m England in tioxeaher 1633. 



The Lords Baltimore cmd Taleratkm 



25 



tending parties, with few exceptions, did 
not advocate that all religious doctrines had 
a fundamental right to coexist with theirs. 
Rather each sought to establish the su- 
premacy of its own brand of religion. Even 
among the groups that decried the estab- 
lished religion's supremacy, there existed 
no particular quarrel with the concepts of 
religious uniformity and the magistrates' 
duty to enforce the true faith.* 

For toleration to flourish, the concept of 
religious uniformity, and its concomitant 
biil)ii-^MI#4l4l)»s the magistrates' duty to 
protect the true faith, had to be broken. 
The struggle for religious toleration per- 
sisted throughout the seventeenth-century. 
Like a great tidal basin, there were ebbs 
and flows as the tide for toteratian came in 
and then rushed out. Those who sought to 
break the hold of religious uniformity were 
a disparate lot. Some wrote ponderous 
philosophical treatises to justify religious 
toleration but with small effect. Others, 
more practically minded, sought toleration 
through political activities. There were 
some successes. However, unlimited toler- 
ation was not to be established in the sev- 
enteenth-century. As demonstrated by 
England's 1689 Act of Toleration, passed 
as part of the settlement ending the Glo- 
rious Revolution, the gains were ephemeral. 
In some respects that statute marked a step 
backwards from the desperate practices of 
the abortiw reign d the Ca^c^llllwfi 

nio 
• ••''->;• ' 

Lord Baltimore's littk ^eoktiy in Mary- 
land became part of the seventeenth-cen- 
tury struggle to establish religious tolera- 
tion in the Western world. Maryland was 
the first permanent colony founded by the 
English to be based on the concept of tol- 
eration. The Lords Baltimore rejected cuius 
regio eius religio because they were English 
Catholics. Given the intense anti-Catholic 
prejudices of their age,^^ they knew that 
they could not establish Catholicism in 
Maryland and certainly evidenced no desire 
to do so. But beyond this they knew, based 
on the career of George Calvert, that polit- 
ical loyalty was not necessarily conditioned 
by religious preference. From his experi- 
ence, the Lords Baltimore concluded that 
other means besides religious preference 



In order to understand Maryland tolera- 
tion, the Calverts must be viewed as hard- 
nosed pragmatic Catholic entrqpreneurs 
who were attempting to prosper in a world 
that was predominately Protestant. 

The condition of the English Catholic 
community on the eve of colonization was 
one of the important factors which brought 
the Calverts to their policy of religious tol- 
eration. Given the nature of the penal leg- 
islation that sought to ensure religious uni- 
formity in Eiigland, it is perhaps remarka- 
ble thafl-<@lNiMMH»-8»^f«ve# a* INal 
contrary to the traditional picture pre- 
sented by many Maryland historians, the 
English Catholic community was not a 
beaten and subdued minority looking only 
for a way to escape England. To be certain, 
the penal laws exacted a heavy toll. To 
dwell endlessly on this factor, however, is 
to overlook the remarkable transformation 
and viability of the Catholic community. 
Not only had Catholics survived the on- 
slaught of the penal laws and the destruc- 
tion of their Church, but their numbers 
grew significantly during the reigiii-iJiif 
James I and Charles I. For example, a re- 
cent study indicated that the number of 
recusants (Catholics) may have almost dou- 
bled between 1603 and 1640. The commu- 
nity flourished to such an extent that one 
historian concluded that "English Catholi- 
cism would not experience such expansion 
again until the nineteenth-century." In 
casting their lot with Catholics, the Cal- 
verts joined a vi•y%^'i«iMenated commvi- 
nity that had come to terms with its situa- 
tion in England." 

Equally important was where and how 
Catholicism survived. For all intents and 
purposes, the penal legislation destlf«fed 
the Catholic Church in England. But to 
destroy the Church was not, as historian 
John Bossy so ably argued, to destroy Ca- 
tholicism. With its hierarchial structure in 
shambles, English Catholicism survived as 
a sect. Individual Catholics, demonstrating 
great wit and cunning, survived because 
they were able to adapt to the new condi- 
tions in England. One reason that the So- 
ciety of Jesus became the backbone of 
Catholic survival is because Jesuits recog- 
nized this development and became mis- 



Maryland Mistcwmcal Magazine 



Functioning like itinerant preachers, the 
Jesuits carried their priestly office to the 
scattered families where the ancient faith 
had survived, notably among the gentry and 
nobility. For the most part Catholic sur- 
vival was a function of social and economic 
standing. Among the lower social and eco- 
ii^tHtc elements, Catholicism disappeared. 
The exceptions were London, where in the 
very shadow of Parliament, Catholics pur- 
sued a rich variety of occupations, and in 
the countryside where many of the faithful 
survived fn the sei^ice of the Catholic gen- 
try or nobility. In these Catholic enclaves 
in the countryside, the gentry neutralized 
the impact of the penal legislation and 
made Catholic survival possible.^® In turn, 
their sons, educated overseas, returned as 
priests to nurture the religion among the 
gentry, who protected them in their clan- 
destine practices. Caroline M. Hibbard, in 
assessing the many local studies in recent 
years, concluded that the great value of 
these studies was to demonstrate how mis- 
taken was the traditional picture of Cath- 
«#ic4fife in England and "how normal, even 
uneventful, was the life led by many Eng- 
lish Catholics." A long tradition of civility 
and tacit understanding existed between 
Protestant and Catholic. Friendshig arid 
§mi» standing prevented t«fe'^t«i«*P 
from having full effect. Thus, while the 
occasional persecutions were real, they 
were not particularly effective against the 
gentry. On the eve of colonization, Catho- 
rK«'!ted made th#«^e!ssary adjustiiiiMlit'iS 
survive. Their continued existence as%i0ll^ 
olics was no longer in doubt.'^ 

That Catholicism survived mainly 
tmong the gentry and nobility was of par- 
ticular significance for the Calverts and the 
Maryland colony. Early in the seven- 
teenth-century an English Jesuit noted the 
{froblems involved in attracting Catholic 
settlers to colonization. Father Robert Par- 
sons (Persons) thought that it would "be a 
very hard matter" for Catholics to be drawn 
into a colonial enterprise because "the bet- 
tier and richer »Ar^^fh respecte of theire 
wealth and commodities at home and of the 
love of the countrey and feare of the state, 
will disdayne commonly to heare of such a 
motione." Recognizing "the poor sort" were 
d^endent on their betters, he aigued that 



they would not be an effective source for 
potential colonists either. The demography 
of Catholic survival worked against attract- 
ing significant numbers of settlers from the 
Catholic community. The inability to at- 
tract many Catholics to their colony pro- 
foundly influenced how the Calverts would 
manafe their "Maryland designe." It meant 
that whatever their preference might have 
been, the Catholic Lords Baltimore would 
have to rely on Protestant settlers to suc- 
ceed in the design.^* 

'•Mnly ChartJ*^SSl?ert, the thJrd'Lord Bal- 
timore (1637-1715), made a direct state- 
ment concerning the origins of toleration 
in Maryland. While his 1678 assessment 
does not provide a full explanation, and is 
incorrect on at least one important matter, 
Calvert's statement merits a detailed ex- 
amination. Replying to a set of queries from 
the Lords of Trade, he fairly described the 
situation his father confronted: 

... at the first planteing of this Provynce 
by my ffather Albeit he had an absolute 
Liberty given to him and his heires to ^jy 
thither any Persons out of any of t1te*Di3- 
minions that belonged to the Crowne of 
England who should be found Wylling to 
go thither yett when he came to make use 
of this Liberty he found very few who were 
'"kHiSfiied to goe and seat themselves in 
those parts But such m .Sc^ SQipe Bemeti . 
or other could not lyve witk Mne.in other 
places 

During the eighteen months between the 
granting of the charter (20 June 1632) and 
the sailing of the Ark and the Dove (22 
November 1633) from Cowes, Cecil Lord 
Baltimore actively recruited investors and 
settlers from his house in the predomi- 
nately Catholic Bloomsbury district in 
London. Father Andrew White, S.J., who 
earnestly sought the opportunity to con- 
duct an overseas mission, ably assisted Bal- 
timore and wrote Maryland's first coloni- 
zation tract in 1633.^° Although the major 
effort concentrated on men and women 
with capital available for investment, pon- 
siderable attention was gi^efi it^fsfft-i^ftt 
yeomen, artisans, laborers, and other 
poorer men who would provide the vast 
majority of immigrants. In spite of a seem- 
ingly attractive set of inducements, the 
camp«Agii wife^ttot partiCulariy succeissful in 



The Lords BeAtimoremid Toler^ioti 



27 



attracting Catholics. Those who responded 
were primarily the younger sons of gentry 
families. Because of their position in their 
family and because there was little prospect 
of employment in England, they opted to 
join Baltimore. The presence and financial 
backing of those seventeen Catholic gentle- 
men and their retinues were significant for 
launching the Maryland design. However 
the bulk of the settlers would differ from 
•tile i»«p*fe^l!or m tiie critical iHH*l«M9P re- 
ligious beliefs.^^ 

Venturing to America with a Catholic 
iliid^oprietor gave non-Catholics reason 
tdglifM^ As Charles Calvert related 

And of these [who considered throwing in 
their lot with the Catholic Baltimore] a 
great parte were such as could not conforme 
in all particulars to the severall Lawes of 
England relating to Religion. Many there 
were of this sort of People who declared 
their Wyllingness to goe and Plant them- 
selves in the Provynce so as they might 
4iib'li#tifli!Ml^iieraeioii 

He then added, almost parenthetically, 
that unless certain conditions concerning 
toleration were met by liis father, "in all 
fiQlipil^ This Provy»ce [would kave] never 
jilSawMllanted."^^ 

Several points made later in the century 
by Charles Calvert need to be explored, 
«ai»@l^^tbe rigliMe0,.$p. « im^msm^sm 
religious ptqwlatioii in order to meme the 
necessary settlers; the assertiaM^t the 
impetus for toleration came from tihe people 
who "could not conforme in all {jltifeieiAMrB^'i 
and that the idea that toleration was a pre- 
corRfition for emigration. 

A precise statement of the religious affil- 
iation of the early settlers is not possible. 
Lord Baltimore did not even know the ex- 
act number of settlers who sailed with the 
first expedition. He reported in January 
1634 that he "sent a hopeful Colony into 
Maryland" with "two of the Brothers gone 
with near twenty other Gentlemen M'me^y 
good fashion, and three hundred labouring 
men well provided in all Things." Baltimore 
was either misinformed or unduly optimis- 
tic, for the actual number falls far short of 
hisifetimatioii. Edward Watkins, aearcher 
for London, reported that immediately be- 
fore the departure of the Ark and the Doue, 



'lie l(»ad«fe«#tlM -Qfitit of Allegiance "t» «H 
and every the persons aboard, to the num- 
ber of about 128." Down river, the ships 
picked up some additional Catholic settlers, 
including two Jesuits. The most accurate 
count to date yields a range of between Wt 
and 148 settlers who participated in the 
founding of Maryland. 

Although English Jesuits reported to 
Rome that "under the auspices of a certain 
CathoHfe Hilfe«^'ine<MSilii^ of 
Englishmen, largely Catholics," had been 
sent to America, it is certain that the ma- 
jority of the settlers were Protestant. Some 
of the settlers during the early years mm^ 
Purtfcattt leaning (i.e., those who "cotrid net 
conforme in all particulars"). For example, 
the first significant dispute concerning re- 
ligion involved the Catholic overseer of the 
.Jbwiit.plMi«tk>ii«Bd/ca)e of hisj^nrants. 
iPttfe s^s^ahflfefd-tN'en' reading alotSd ftom 
the sermons of "Silver Tongued" Henry 
Smith, a particularly virulent anti-Catholic 
Elizab«^iMr^rfKtilH«ninister. Protestant- 
ism was strongest among the lower social 
and economic element in Maryland, while 
the leadership of the colony was predomi- 
nately Catholic and would remain so until 
Baltimore a^KJinted a ProtestAi* ^ftrern- 
ment in the late 1640s. Governing a colony 
with a religiously mixed population in an 
intolerant age was no mean feat and pushed 
the res^ipi.crf theXIatiiolic Lords Balti- 
more to their limits.^* 

While it is doubtful that Cecil Calvert 
had a fully developed plan for governing 

.riiis colony in the early 1630s, it would be 
incorrect, as Charles Calvert did, to attrib- 
ute toleration to the dissenters. However 
imperfectly perceived, toleration was the 
foundation of the Calverts' overall strategy. 

y^Skm means by which toleration was to be 
accomplished must be viewed as having an 
evolutionary character. A number of points 
must be stressed. The first is the novelty of 
the "Maryland designe": a Catholic colony 

^ fcli^iMyi*%*the f0®d grace and authority" 

j#ft^fewtestant monarch. The second is 
that, with the death of George Calvert in 
April 1632, execution of the design rested 
squarely with a young Lord Baltimore who 
not onfy lacked his father's long expesence 
in government and colonization, but was 
untested as a leader. Finally, Cecil Calvert 



28 



Maryland Histoihcai. Magazine 



move ^tkc ^ 'iriHiM^ 4k> 
Maryland, where he expected to exercise 
close control over the conduct of affairs, 
especially as they related to religion. As it 
was, his "Adversaries" strenuously fought 
ttis effort to found the colony and forced 
him to remain in England. Having to ex- 
ercise authority from England complicated 
Lord Baltimore's task and made all efforts 
«t implementing toleration tentative.^* 

of keeping toleration as informal as possi- 
ble.^^ By not relying on formal legislation, 
"ttie Lord proprietor perhaps thought he 
could tmid. any possible scrutiny of his 
practice" df tbleration, which ran contrary 
to the laws of England. Thus he imple- 
mented toleration through executive fiat. 
The substance of what Lord Baltimore 
promised Prote«t«Ht4My;ler8.>ir«s embodied 
in the Instructions he'isfetted'to his brother 
Leonard, who was to govern the colony in 
his absence, and the Catholic commission- 
ers, Jerome Hawley and Thomas Comwal- 
lis. These Instructions, issued on 13 No- 
vember 1633, required the Catholic leaders 
to be "very carefull to preserve unity and 
peace amongst the passengers on Shi^^- 

. . .[to] suffer no scandall nor offence to be 
given to any of the Protestants, whereby 
any just complaint may hereafter be made, 
by them, in Virginea or in England, and 



that for that end, they cause all Acts erf 
Romane Catholique Religion to be done as 
privately as may be, and that they instruct 
all Romane Catholiques to be silent upon 
all occasion of discourse concerning mat- 
ters of religion; and that the said Governor 
and Commissioners treete the Protestants 
with as much mildness and favor as Justice 
will permit. And this is to be observed at 
Land as well as at Sea." /•'•_• 

^ 1fhl?ttfi*r'ortt»t GwfefiioT Culvert read 
his Instructions to the settlers, he appar- 
ently treated them as if they had the full 
• tmtl*^ imi :^miag the first decade only 
two cases involving disputes between Cath- 
olics and Protestants became public. In 
both cases the Catholic government ruled 
in favor of the Protestants at the expense 
of the Catholics, who violated the intent of 
Baltimore's Instructions. In addition, Bal- 
timore's government assiduously avoided 
any taint of a religious test for voting or 
holding Qfflce. All male residents, excluding 
servants and Jesuits,"#ere'e%ftle:*These 
practices were contrary to developments 
taking place in the Massachusetts Bay col- 
ony. There, for example, the General Court 
passed a law which made political freedom 
ail atia*«ftfe 'df 'ffi«?afts?^ €t iSse 

churches. In that colony the magistrates 
took seriously their role as "nursing fath- 
ers" of the religious institutions. In com- 
mon with the Anglicans in Virginia, the 



On Sunday the first of July, william Lewis informed Copt: Comwaleys that certaine 
of his servants had drawen a petition to Sir John Hervey [Harvey, governor of 
Virginia]; & intended at the Chappell that morning to procure all the Protestants 

Beloved in our Lord &c This is to give you notice of the abuses and scandalous 
reproaches wch God and his ministers doe daily suffer by william Lewis of St Inego's, 
who saith that our Ministers are the Ministers of the divell; and that our books are 
made by the instruments of the divell, and further aaith that those servants wch 
are imSI»i'"M^vharge shcffl Aftepc tW^ rem'imfWSI^ibih ddthltii^l'M^i^'om- 
religion tl^Mn the house of the said william Lewis, to the great discomfort of those 
PMK teHhMR wch an urxiirr tus Huti\.cUuti, n^)kxiaify in thia huaJ^'ii njuntry 
where ft* |?Biil^ minister is to tem:h and instruct ignorant people in the grounds of 
rel^ion 

— The Processe agst William LeWte . , . , June/J«i^ 10^, PifoceecfeU^ of 
the Provincial Court 



t 
I 



The,Lerds Baltimore and TolerotkM 



29 



Bay colony Puritans moved toward reli- 
gious uniformity and an established reli- 
1 gion.23 

Under the Catholic Lords Baltimore, 
Maryland would not have an established 
religion. The charter was written in such a 
way that the Calverts could have played a 

!role similar to that of the English monarch, 
or for that matter, the governor of Virginia. 
I The charter granted Baltimore "the Pa- 
tronages and Advowsons of all Churches, 
which . . . shall happen hereafter to be 
erected: together with license and power, to 
build and found Churches ... in convenient 
and fit places." within the colony. However, 
the Catholic Calverts made no effort to 
establish religious institutions, unjdoubt- 
I mH^ h^Mm thv cMmr mfat^d-^mt all 
' churches be consecrated according to the 
ecclesiastical laws of England.^" 

In implementing his toleration strategy, 
^ Baltimore acted wisely. He recognized from 
the beginning that for Maryland to succeed, 
religious disputes must be avoided at all 
costs and that religion must be kept as 
private as possible. Rather than following 
the accepted pattern of estabUshing reli- 
gious uniformity, Baltimore moved to the 
other end of the spectrum by attempting to 
I use his authority to remove religion from 
I the body politic. From the beginning, and 
, without hesitation, he moved to implement 
I this policy. For a Catholic founding a col- 
ony under the auspices of a Protestant na- 
[ tion, no one was more ideally fitted for the 
I |pMAt'<^Waix^^l4>fiid Baltimore. A moder- 
i ate man with a pragmatic outlook, he con- 
scientiously rejected the role of protector 
of the "true faith." Baltimore survived be- 
cause he recognized that, if he were to 
I tmmpr th^ ttmii^ 4miiv^M»' m Maryland, 
I provide an opportunity for Catholics to 
worship without fear or burdensome laws, 
and still attract a sufficient number of set- 
tlers, he had to keep religion out of politics. 
The degree to which this could be accom- 
^ plished would determine the success of his 
"Maryland designe." 

Although Baltimore made one unsuc- 
cessful attempt during the first decade of 
I settlement to legislate in religious matters 
I (his proposed "Act for Felonies") and the 
Assembly passed an ambigious "Act for 
Church Liberties" in 1639, the proprietary 
government did little to provide for the 



spiritual needs of the colonists. In marked 
contrast to the other colonies, religion was 
considered to be a private matter, of con- 
cern to the proprietor only if it became 
disruptive. As a result, the development of 
religious institutions in Maryland lagged 
far behind those of the other English colo- 
nies.^^ 

Father White and the other Jesuit 
priests, whose presence in the colony was 
as a result of their own efforts, provided for 
the spiritual needs of the Catholic settlers. 
Cecil Calvert allowed the Jesuits to emi- 
grate under the same conditions afforded 
the other colonists. Although the priests 
thought Baltimore drove a hard bargain in 
acquiring their services, they accepted his 
terms and sought private solicitations to 
finance their "pious undertaking." Many 
Catholics "showed great liberality," con- 
tributing both money and servants to se- 
cure a Jesuit presence. Once in Maryland, 
the priests quickly learned they could not 
expect "sustenance from heretics hostile to 
the faith nor from Catholics [who are] for 
the most part poor." In addition, the Jesu- 
its, especially Father Thomas Copley, did 
not appreciate fully Baltimore's delicate 
position regarding toleration and pushed 
him for special privileges as Catholics. 
Risking alienation from some of his co- 
religionists, Cecil Calvert steadfastly re- 
fused and took steps to replace the Jesuits 
with secular priests.'''^ 

Nothing was done to provide for the spe- 
cial rehgious needs of the Protei!*«ii# -eet- 
tlers. Although having full freedom to pro- 
vide their own religious institutions, they 
lacked the means to do so and lived without 
benefit of formal religious institutions dur- 
ing the first^d»6a4e. WMIi tife feiie«pti«n of 
Kent Island, where an Anglican minister 
briefly served the needs of William Clai- 
borne's settlers, there were no clergymen 
from the Church of England in Maryljand 
until 1650. Evidently some of the Protes- 
tants conducted lay services in the Catholic 
chapel at St. Mary's City. However, lacking 
an institutional basis, a number of Protes- 
tants succumbed to the proselytizing activ- 
ities of the Jesuits and were converted to 
Catholicism.^^ 

Considering the potential for religious 
animosities among the religiously diverse 
population, the first decade was remarkably 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



free of religious disputations. There were 
tensions; but the government ably diffused 
them. It is not possible to tell where Balti- 
more's novel experiment would have taken 
him had he been left to govern his colony 
in peace. Between 1645 and 1660 events 
over which he had little or no control inter- 
vened to destroy the harmony he sought. 
In order to maintain his policy of tolera- 
tion, new tactics were needed. 

Robert Wintour declared in 1635 that 
Baltimore "kntf#\^ ^flKlf' a desighe when 
rightly understood will not want undertak- 
ers." He was wrong, and optimism soon 
gave way to despair. Writing from Mary- 
land three years later, Father Copley la- 
ftiented that "B#Kf ^ftrtftinly nothing is 
wanting but people." In the four years since 
its founding, Maryland's population had 
increased only slightly. Baltimore, having 
committed all his funds to colonization, was 
Kving off his father-in-law's generosity. 
His creditors brought suit against him at 
home, and his colony, racked by dissention, 
showed little prospect of profit.^" 

Throughout the 1640s Baltimore's great- 
est challenge was to get people to his col- 
ony. When his efforts to attract settlers 
from the mother country did not produce 
thfe required numbers, he turned his atten- 
tion to other English colonies. What at- 
tracted him to New England, described by 
the Jesuits in their annual letter in 1642 as 
"full of Puritan Calvinists, the most bigoted 

Baltimore commissioned Cuthbert Fenwick 
to journey to New England in search of 
settlers. He carried a letter and a commi- 
»ion to Captain Edward Gibbons of Boston. 
^"tfefJgStia IS!^ 1«f^s^ffilSettsr^overnor 
John Winthrop, Baltimore offered land in 
Maryland "to any of ours that would trans- 
port themselves thither, with free liberty of 
religion, and all other privileges which the 
place afforded, paying such annual rent as 
should be agreed upon." To Winthrop's 
obvious relief, "our captain had no mind to 
farther his desire herein, nor had any of 
our people temptation that way."^* 

The English Civil War (1642-1649), a 
power struggle between King and Parlia- 
ment, sidetracked Baltimore's efforts to at- 
tract settlers from other colonies. The po- 
Mrization between Royalists and Rotrad- 



heads, between those Anglicans and Cath- 
olics who supported the King and those 
Presbyterians and Independents who sup- 
ported Parliament, spilled over into the 
American colonies. In this charged religious 
atmosphere, Baltimore's task was rendered 
more difficult. His bold experiment with 
religious toleration received a severe test- 
ing, as his enemies plundered his little col- 
ony. When Baltimore lost control of the 
colony, toleration disappeared. 

Using Maryland's close identification 
with RdraS8P6litholicism and Royalism as 
a rallying point, "that ungrateful Villaine 
Richard Ingle," invaded Maryland in 1645 
under letters of marque from Parliament. 
Driving Gov. Leonard Calvert from the col- 
ony, the captain ^^t^Vl^rmMt^ 
close to destroying the budding society that 
had been nurtured during the past decade 
under the Catholic leadership. Ingle's de- 
structive machinations, later called "the 
plundering yeare," we^ Sfl&ed primarily at 
prominent Catholics, who, in addition to 
suffering the heaviest property losses, were 
dragged back to England. As a rationale. 
Ingle claimed that most of the people in 
Maryland were "Papists and of the Popish 
and Romish Religion" and supporters of 
the king. The invasion of Ingle's "enter- 
prising heretics," as English Jesuit Prov- 
incial Henry More styled them, left Mary- 
land in a sorry state and the Catholic pro- 
prietor open to legal attack against his 
charter in England.^® 

of 1646 to restore some semblance of order 
in the wake of the anarchy that followed 
Ingle. His death in June 1647 left Baltimore 
without his primary agent in the colony. 
Temporarily, leadership wiSWVs tMJ^c 
councilor, Thomas Greene, whom Leonard 
Calvert had designated as his successor. 
But the winds of change blew briskly 
through Maryland. Baltimore, in an effort 
to outmaneu\^ef ft1§ adversaries in Parlia- 
ment, fostered a revolution in his own gov- 
ernment. In 1648 Baltimore commissioned 
a Protestant governor, William Stone, to 
replace Greene, gave the council a predom- 
inately Protestant composition, and ap- 
pointed a Protestant secretary. Although 
Protestants had held lesser offices in the 
colony, the governor, councilors, and the 
secretary bad been Catholics.^^ 



The Lords BaMmofK end Tohrc^ion 



31 



Why did Lord Baltimore revolutionize 
his government at this time? Originally, he 
had relied on Catholic gentlemen and es- 
pecially on his brother for leadership in the 
colony. These two elements, religion and 
family, were noticeably absent in the wake 
of Ingle's invasion and Leonard Calvert's 
premature death. But of greater impor- 
tance, Stone, as a Virginia Protestant and 
a supporter of Parliament, mitigated the 
chances that English authorities would step 
in to seize control of the colony. With 
changes made by In^e against his colony 
still pending before Parliament, Cecil Cal- 
vert strengthened his position with that 
body by appointing Protestants to the ma- 
jer offices. 

' "But equally importairtrihUaming St9M* 
was Lord Baltimore's desire to build up the 
population of his colony, which had been 
dispersed with Ingle's invasion. As Stone's 
mmemamm. rctad, he "hath undertaken in 
^Bf^lioftri^a^ to procure five hundred 
people of British and Irish discent to come 
from other places and plant and resi^ 
within our said province of Maryland lliV 
the advancement of our Colony." Baltimore 
envisioned that his policy of toleration and 
the lure of rich lands would serve to attract 
those who suffered from intolerance in 
9#fertedli»[#ei.* ■■ 

That Stone's commission coincided with 
unrest among Puritans in Virginia was no 
doubt instrumental in their coming to 
Maryland. Virginia had passed a law 
against Jfii^ilteg ^if WHfihh&S^ltmft^ 
none" lived there.^^ Within three years a 
congregational church was formed and an 
appeal was made to New England for cler- 
pysaen. In 1642 the new feveirnor, Sir Wil- 
ffi^i Berkeley, exeditiNlmlHStYtieelMi;^ 
be careful that Almighty God is servf^lS^ 
cording to the form established in tbe 
Church of England." Under his leadership 
the Virginia Assembly r^qpired the con- 
formity of all miniSteift'to the "orders and 
constitutions" of the Church of England, 
and in 1643 compelled all nonconformists 
"to depart the Colony." In 1648 Berkeley 
again raised a "persecution against them" 
and dispersed the congregation at Nanse- 
mond. Some of these nonconformists were 
the first of many who would seek refuge in 

Governor Stone. As one of the Puritan 



emigrants put it, "In the year 1649, many, 
both of the congregated Church, and other 
well affected people [i.e., supporters of Par- 
liament] in Virginia, being debarred from 
the free exercise of Religion under the Gov- 
ernment of Sir William Barkely removed 
themselves. Families and Estates into the 
Province of Maryland, being thereunto in- 
vited by Captain William Stone, then Gov- 
ernor for Lord Baltimore, with promise of 
Liberty in Religion and Priviled^ of Eng- 
lish Subjects."'" 

With Protestants ftfflwg ttwst of the prin- 
cipal offices, and with an influx of settlers 
traditionally hostile to his religion, Balti- 
more confronted a new problem, namely, 
how to protect bis co-religionists in the 
exercise of ttaltf^ifeligion without jeopard- 
izing his increasingly positive relationship 
with Parliament. As long as the colony was 
in the hands of Catholics and family mem- 
bers, there had been no special need for 
formal legislation. Events after 1645 dra- 
matically altered the situation. Baltimore 
now sought more formal guarantees for his 
policy. 

Baltimore first moved to secure safe- 
guards for Maryland Catholics through a 
series of oaths to be administered to all of 
his principal office-holders, most of whom 

considerations were not apparent in the 
many previous oaths required by Balti- 
more, their increasing importance was re- 
flected in the new oaths prescribed in 1648. 
TTie govemear, for escalate; had tso swear 
not to "trouble molest or discountance any 
Person whatsoever in the said Province 
professing to believe in Jesus Christ and in 
ptrttci^r no Reman Catholic i<x ox in 
#«Bpett 6f MS (Whaf fMlgiew tiwln his or 
her free exercise thereof within the said 
Province so long as they be not unfaithful 
to his said Lordship or molest or Conspire 
against the Civil Government Established 
here." In addition the governor hM to at- 
test that he would not "make any difference 
of Persons in Conferring of Offices Re- 
wards or Favours proceeding from the^ 
thority which his said Lordship has con- 
ferred ... in Respect of their said Religion 
Respectively," but merely as they are found 
"faithful and well deserving of his said 
'iMti K M t ^ F'^W^' f^mttsm ^Sm nvss to ute 
his "Power and Authority" to protect 



32 



Mah^i^i*) HisTORicAfc Magazine 



Christians in the free exercise of their re- 
ligion from molestation (without Balti- 

' more's "consent or Privity") by any ©ther 

' officer or person in the province/^ 

These oaths articulated the basic policy 
that Baltimore wanted to follow. The gov- 
ernment would not interfere with the free 

■ exercise of religion on the part of Christian 

' Marylanders, especially Roman Catholics; 
the government would not discriminate on 

; account of religious preference in appoint- 
ing persons to positions of authority; and 
^• gw P efwm e wt would protect Chriililu 

^ from being harassed in the free exercise of 
their religion. All was posited on loyalty to 

I the proprietor. As long as Marylanders re- 
mained faithful to his government, they 
a^uld enjoy T*%iCK»rft*ed©Br; 

Having dealt with his major appointive 
officers, Lord Baltimore turned his atten- 
tion to the remainder of the inhabitants, 
who were to be dealt with through the 

• SBsentbly that cofif en«d i April 1649. Thfe 
vehicle was "An Act Concerning Religion." 
This act, popularly known as the "Act of 
Toter»tkm," had its origin in the same cir- 

' cumstances that produced the oaths. In 
part the Act also was a response to the 
growing anti-Catholic sentiments ex- 
pressed during the second half of the dec- 

• will of Thomas Allen, a poor Prot- 
estant, exemplifies the fear and distrust 
evident in society. Although he left his chil- 
dren with little estate, he willed that "for 
the disposall of my children I would not 

1 htmr ^e*B 'tO"' live with any Papist." 
Whether based on fear or on cupidity, there 
was a rising anti-Catholic sentiment in 

' Maryland.*^ 

The 1649 Act Concerning Religion was 
deariythe-worij'ef tlife proprietor. -A i i Mp g h 
the Act may have been modified-l^ the 
assembly, it originated in the same imper- 

[ atives that led to the oaths for the governor 

; &»«1 . ceuncil. Cecil Calvert submitted "a 
body of laws ... contemii^ sixteiStie in 
Number" to the first assembly under a 

> Protestant governor. He desired that the 

► whole body be passed without alteration, 

• dedarii^ $hat the new code of laws would 
\ repiik^' &n existing laws for the colony. 
I However, the assembly, asserting its inde- 
1 pendence, refused. Eventually the legisla- 

<fews<p«iMi ft^dt .^«nRi|iw1ttw^.4ilit Ant 



being "An Act Concerning Religion," which 
they undoubtedly lifted from Baltimore's 
code.« 

The Act was in keeping with the policy 
the lord proprietor had assumed from the 
beginning, namely, to use all means avail- 
able to hold down religious disputes. This 
Act resulted not from the needs of the 
Protestant settlers, as Charles Calvert in- 
correctly suggested, but grew out of the 
necessity to reassure Baltimore's fellow 
Catholics. He still sought to keep religion 
out of politics, but fMifi:ki» tiUmm^m^wee 
of Maryland government and the height- 
ened tensions regarding religious matters 
thoroughout the English world, formal leg- 
islation, as opposed to the infoi;iJwl 
st/i'iKftidfiA, 'twis ttBCtsssstj*"^ Mcisrt pSfcce 
in the province. Baltimore wanted to unite 
the people of Maryland "in their affection 
and fidellity to us" while avoiding those 
things which tended towaird fa<:tiQn£iliw> 
Hr'^wJWi^it'fSie tHHmiimnis ch«erfull 
obedience to the Civill Government . . . that 
as wee are all members of one Body Poli- 
tique of that Province wee may have also 
one minde in all Civill and temporall mat- 
ters." Herein lies the novelty of the "Mary- 
land designe." Nothing was said about un- 
iting all Marylanders in religion. What was 
important was loyalty to the head of t^e 
civil government, not to a religious doc- 
trine. As Cecil Calvert summed up his 
thinking in 1650: "It being a Certaine and 
true Maxime which tells us, that ... By 
Qmitemii! mtd'\Jlf^KM a small C<dk>ny may 
growe into a great and renouned Nation, 
whereas by Experience it is found, that by 
discord and Dissention Great and glorious 
kingdomes and Common Wealths decline, 
stl6ttxme to nothing." The Aetiof 
designed to remove, as far as was humanly 
possible, religion from politics.^* 

Whether the assembly lifted "An Act 
a^EHieixiing Religion" verbatim from Balti- 
inore'is original code or supplemented it 
according to its own needs, the legislation 
imposed severe penalties in an attempt to 
quell religious disputes. Any person under 
the authority of the "absolute Lord and 
Proprietary of this Province" who shall 
"blaspheme God," or "deny Jesus Christ to 
be the Son of God, or deny the Holy Trin- 
Hgr, ^mtim^M speeches agak^ 



r 



The Lords B(dtimiore and Toleration 



33 



the Holy Trinity" was to be punished with 
death and forfeiture of all lands and goods 
to Lord Baltimore.*^ 

In similar vein, any person who used or 
uttered "any reproachfiill words or 
Speeches concerning the blessed Virgin 
Mary the Mother of our Saviour or the holy 
apostles or Evangelists" was subject to fines 
and whippings, and for a third offense, 
banishment. The Act provided similar pen- 
alties for reproachfully calling any person 
a "heretic, schismatic, idolater, Puritan, In- 
dependent, Presbyterian, Popish Priest, 
Jesuit, Jesuited Papist, Lutheran, Calvin- 
ist, Anabapist, Brownist, Antinomian, Bar- 
rowist, Roundhead, Separatist," or any 
other disparaging epithet relating to reli- 
gion. In addition, the Act made it an offense 
punishable by fine for profaning "the Sab- 
bath or Lords day called Sunday by fre- 
quent swearing, drunkennes or by any un- 
civill or disorderly recreation, or by working 
. . . when absolute necessity doth not re- 
quire it.""^ 

The Act concluded on a more generous 
note. Because the "inforceing of the con- 
science in matters of Religion hath fre- 
quently fallen out to be of dangerous Con- 
sequence," and in order to procure more 
quiett and peaceable government of this 
Province . . . and ... to preserve mutuall 
Love and amity amongst the Inhabitants 
thereof," the Act proclaimed that no one 
"professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall 
from henceforth bee any waies troubled, 
Molested or discountenanced for or in re- 
spect of his or her religion nor in the free 
exercise thereof." In Maryland no person 
was in any way to be compelled "to the 
beleife or exercise of any other Religion 
against his or her consent." The only con- 
dition imposed on this freedom was that 
the residents "be not unfaithfuU to the Lord 
Proprietary, or molest or conspire against 

»47 

ship to Christians in return for their obe- 
dience to him and the civil government 
instituted by him. The reorganization of 
the government in 1648 and 1649 strength- 
ened his belief that religion and religious 
disputes could only frustrate his efforts at 
controlling the colony. By imposing very 
severe penalties With regard "to What the 



inhabitants of Maryland could do or say 
about another's religion, Cecil Calvert in- 
tended to remove religion from politics. At 
the same time, by offering all inhabitants 
the free exercise of their religion, he insured 
the Catholics would be protected in theit 
own religious worship. 

Regarding the new Puritan emigrants 
from Virginia, Baltimore's policy was 
quickly put into effect. He promised liberty 
of religion and conscience in return for 
political obedience and land on the same 
terms given others, in return for a yearly 
rent and subscription to an oath of fidelity. 
If a 1650 document signed by the leading 
Protestants, including Puritan elder Wil- 
liam Durant, means anything, the proprie- 
tary government fiilfilled the bargain. An 
incident involving Walter Pakes, who ac- 
cused Protestant Secretary Hatton of 
speaking evil about "Roman Catholickes," 
indicated that the Proprietor leaned over 
backwards to avoid trouble. He absolved 
his Secretary of any wrong doing, once 
again supporting a Protestant against a 
Catholic. In addition, Baltimore's officials 
erected a new county (Anne Arundel) to 
encompass the Virginia Puritans, allow^ 
them to choose their own officers, and to 
hold their own courts.*® 

These extraordinary measures, however, 
proved insufficient to insure the civil peace 
Baltimore so much needed for his colony to 
prosper, as once more outside forces inter- 
vened to disrupt the colony. In 1651 Parlia- 
ment, which had defeated and executed 
Charles I in the Civil War, dispatched a 
commission to reduce Virginia to the obe- 
dience of the Puritan Commonwealth. 
After accomplishing their mission in Vir- 
ginia, the Commissioners, taking a broad 
interpretation of their instructions, decided 
to reduce Maryland to obedience also. Be- 
tween 1652 and 1655, intermittent war 
aged between the cc 
iipporters, mainly tHS^^ffete 
ritans from Virginia, and Governor Stone 
and Calvert loyalists. When Governor 
Stone capitulated in 1655 and submitted to 
the presumed authority of the commission- 
ers, Baltimore was again deprived of his 
province without benefit of legal pr@«e«€l- 

49 

ings.*" 

Having gained control of Baltimore's 



34 Maryland Historical Magazine 




Freedom of Conscience Monument, St. Mary's City 

Designed by Baltimore sculptor Hans Schuler and erected by the counties of Maryland in 1934 to 
commemorate the 300th anniversary of the state, this large limestone statue honors the tolerant Act Concerning 
Religion of 1649. The figure, seemingly caught between a rock and a hard place, nicely symbolizes Maryland's 
geographical position in the 17th century, between the intolerant Anglicanism of Virginia to the south and the 
intolerant Puritanism of Massachusetts to the north. In another sense, the monument reminds us that the 
1649 toleration act was philosophically and historically a midpoint between the successful, de facto Calvert 
policies of the early years and the drastic, restrictive era for Catholics from 1689 to the American Revolution. 
(Courtesy, The Maryland Historical Society.) 



The Lords Baltimore and Toleration 



35 



province, the Puritans set about to undo 
his policy of toleration. The "Act concern- 
ing Religion" of 1654, passed in an assem- 
bly that excluded all inhabitants who had 
supported the proprietor or who were Ro- 
man Catholic, stands in marked contrast 
to Cecil Calvert's 1649 Act. Considerably 
shorter than its predecessor, the 1654 Act 
differed in two significant ways. It droi^ed 
the extreme provisions against blasphemy 
and it excluded Catholics explicitly and 
Anglicans implicitly from protection in the 
profession of their faith. It is inconceivable 
that Lord Baltimore, the extensive grant of 
power he received in his charter notwith- 
standing, could have operated in a similar 
fashion by using religion as a basis for 
excluding persons of a particular faith from 
the full enjoyment of political privileges.''" 
Acting within the context of the anti- 
Catholicism of their time and sensing that 
Lord Baltimore's toleration policy reflected 
his weakness within the English Protestant 
world, the Puritans forgot their promises 
of fidelity and unseated the proprietor. At 
this point, supported by the ^ommimmms 
and religiously in accord with the dominant 
elements in Parliament, the Puritans acted 
from a position of strength. What they did 
not reckon with was Baltimore's political 
genius and his ability to manipulate the 
Puritan government in England based on 
his legal right to Maryland. Much to their 
surprise, Cromwell eventually came out in 
support of the Catholic proprietor. By 1657 
Calvert had reestablished control of his 
province. One of his first priorities was to 



efisure that the 1649 Act Concerning Reli- 
gion w«fci thereafter "inviolably observed 
both in the PrMrinciall and all inferior 
Courts of the Province." He returned to 
oaths as a means of insuring the religious 
freedom of the inhabitants, ordering jus- 
tices in St. Mary's County, jvhere most of 
the remaining Catholics Mwsd;-^-»w«ferTK)t 
"to trouble molest or discountenance" any 
person "professing to believe in Jesus 
Christ for or in Respect of his Religion" 
nor in the free exercise of that religion.^' 

Of great significance is the provincial 
court case involving Father Francis Fitz- 
herbert, S.J., who arrived in 1654. A "zeal- 
ous missionary" who brought "aggressive 
leadership" to the Maryland order, the at- 
torney general charged him in 1658 with 
four counts of "practising of Treason & 
Sedition & gyving out Rebellious & muti- 
nous speeches" and endeavoring to raise 
distractions and disturbances within the 
colony. Two of the counts charged him with 
attempting to seduce and draw certain in- 
habitants from "their Religion," while an- 
5tjtii«rtfec«Bed' Mrh -of thr^ateittBg'CathoKc 
Councillor Thomas Gerard with excom- 
munication. His behavior, the attorney 
general maintained, was contrary to "a 
knawne.Act of Assembly." Thf «ase wm 
not seti^d QMtil 1662. Father PitzhertxJrt 
entered a plea to dismiss the suit on the 
grounds that although the charges may be 
true, they were insujffisiiiit to sustain the 
claim. Basing his demurrer on the 1639 Act 
for Church Liberties and the 1649 Act Con- 
cerning Religion, he argued that active 



The "Second" Jti'f'daNCERNiNG Religion, 1654 



It is Enacted and Declared ... fry the Authority of the present Generall Assembly 
That none who profess and Exe[ rjcise the Popish Religion Commonly known by the 
Name of the Roman Catholick Religion can be protected in this Province by the Lawes 
of England formerly Established and yet unrepealed nor by the Government of the 
Commonwea^h Eftgimd Sef^^ ^md lifk^ §tnd the Domimom thereunto 
belongingfj 

. . . Liberty fof religion] be not Extended to popery or prelacy nor to such as under 
the profession of Christ hold forth and practice Licentiousness. 

— "An Act Concerning Religion," Proceedings of the Maryland Assembly, 
20 October 1654. 



36 



Maryland Histotiical Magazine 



preaching and teaching was "the fr«e Ex- 
ercise of every Churchmans Reli^^B." l^he 
Tcsourt sustained his plea:*' ' 

The period thus ushered in, from Cecil 
Calvert's restoration in 1657 to his death 
in 1675, was perhaps the calmest period in 
terms of religious disputation in seven- 
t»estlt*P«eisntury Marylaisl. In 1666 Balti- 
more instructed his son and governor, 
Charles Calvert, to "most strictly and Care- 
fully observe keepe and Execute and cause 
to be observed kept and executed" the 1649 
Act'Concerning Religion. This Act served 
as the basis for preserving the peace after 
1660 and was in no small way responsible 
for the remarkable growth of the colony 
after that date. It is perhaps no coincidence 
that also in 1666 George Alsop, in a fit of 
hyperbolic exuberance, wrote that in Mary- 
land "the Roman Catholick, and Protestant 
■Episcopal, (wbfti!»f^'fe#^«#c^^ w« < ii -per- 
suade have proclaimed open wars irrevoc- 
ably against each other) contrary wise con- 
cur in an unanimous parallel of friendship, 
and inseparable love ints^^led unto (Mse an- 

Opinions and Sects that lodge within this 
Government, meet not together in muti- 
nous contempts to disquiet the power that 
bears Rule, but with a ^0immd quietnefls 
cto^s ftik legaraoferfiatlds'df Authority." If 
Alsop exaggerated, he did not err. Lord 
Baltimore's Maryland design finally began 
to grow and pimpm^^^'imikkm^^aii 
^kkmed.^^ 

It had taken Baltimore twenty-seven 
years to establish religious toleration on a 
firm basis, fro m the t im e he issued his 
Instructions in fll05ftffiJrt«3B^^FIE" 
1649 Act Concerning Religion in 1660. For 
about the next twenty-seven years, reli- 
gious toleration formed the basis of a flour- 
ishing society. There were two major suc- 
cess stories, involving the two most de- 
spised religious groups in the English- 
speaking world. Of all the Protestant sects, 
the Quakers were the most scorned and 
least welcomed in both England and the 
American colonies. Roman Catholics, in- 
creasingly a symbol of political absolutism, 
continued to excite fears among the Eng- 
lish, and like the Quakers, were proscribed 
in their activities in England and in all the 
colonies but Maryland. These two disparate 



groups gained the most from Lord Balti- 
more's policy, and, in turn, provided much 
dflifr leadership of the colony after 1660. 

In 1677 Charles Calvert, the third Lord 
Baltimore, estimated that the "greatest 
part of the Inhabitants of that Province 
(three of four at least) doe consist of Praea- 
biterians, IndepiW*l4w«7 Anabapists aM 
Quakers." Of all Protestant groups named, 
the Quakers were the most numerous. En- 
tering Maryland in the turbulent late- 
16508, the Quakers tested the substaiice of 
Baltimore's restored policy of tOlefatiOn. 
Persecuted and expelled from other colo- 
nies, Quaker principles had yet to find a 
home in America. Initial]^, Mnig l wadl 
seemed to fit the intolerant pattern estab- 
lished in the other colonies. Maryland 
Quakerism began with the work of Eliza- 
beth Harris, who in about 1656 succeeded 
in gainirijp*e^¥erts among the recent 
ritan immigrants. Other missionaries soon 
followed and enjoyed equal success. This 
rapid growth of the Quaker community, 
coupled with the unsettled condition of the 
•Saveimamtt ■ in •tfS8*«(Md'KJ§^'p*93!(JCed a 
brief but heavy persecution of that noto- 
rious sect. One of the problems was the 
Quakers' refusal to take oaths. Given the 
<freat eo^ihasis Baltimore placed on oaths 
a" ilie«tlfs' of injuring loyalty, the "movfe 
against the Quakers is not surprising. How- 
ever, the persecution quickly abated as Ce- 
cil Calvert's government sought aai<«©gMK- 
modation with tb^.®^ ' ' 

After 1660, BaMifiblfe- 's^ew^d ftie Qaak- 
ers as less of a political threat, especially 
after they made concessions regarding at- 
teilatHms^ of their fealty to him as lord 
proprietor. As the Society of Friends rap- 
idly increased in numbers and gained ad- 
herents among influential settlers, Calvert 
and his officers in Maryland saw them as a 
potentially useful addition to society. In 
extending toleration to the Quakers, Balti- 
more may have sought to gain their support 
in establishing his claim to disputed terri- 
tory on Maryland's Eastern Shore. What- 
ever the basis of the accord, it worlftd to 
the benefit of both parties.^'"* 

The Quakers, zealous missionaries who 
were able to organize more effectively than 
other Protestant sects, increased rapidly 
under Baltimore's tolerant policy. When 



The Lords Baltimore and Toleration 



37 



the first Maryland General Meeting, took 
place in 1672, Quakerism' was wide-?f)*e«d, 
with adherents in the majority of counties. 
In return, the Quakers provided much 
needed political leadership in the colony, 
serving through to the end of Cecil Cal- 
vert's proprietorship (1675) in all levels of 
government. During this period, Quaker 
representation on the governor's council 
was especially noticeable.®^ 

The Quaker experience in Maryland was 
not without its rough edges, however. Ques- 
tioning their previous acceptance of politi- 
cal oaths, Quakers began to withdraw from 
paMiil Hi^ke in Charles CtkHH^^ 
proprietorship. In the 1680s Quakers were 
markedly absent from the council. The lord 
proprietor turned against the Quakers in 
1681, is^mg their exclusion, partly vol- 
un^Mry^ e cwuwil*. IIu w ' B'm '.-gs political cir- 
cumstances changed in the late 1680s, 
Charles again courted the Quakers, indicat- 
ing a willingness to accommodate their par- 
ticular political scruples. The Quakers^ hav- 
ing flourished under the Calverts' geMMii^ 
lenient policy of toleration, continued to 
support the proprietor. In the Protestant 
«i0vement that overthrew proprietary gov- 
ernment in 1689, Quakers were conspicuous 
by their absence. They also strenously op- 
posed the establishment of the Church of 
England in the 1690s." 

The. tftam major beneficiary of Mary- 
land's restored toleration policy were Ro- 
man Catholics, who after 1660 were able to 
enjoy the security of conscience and pros- 
perity for which they had emigrated. Al- 
though they were the first to establish re- 
ligious institutions in Maryland, Catholics 
still comprised only a small portion of the 
population during the second half of the 
qeritury. Chades Calvert in 1677 estimated 
MM»l^y-ii«s}^ihe4swe«t wmikem^ all the 
many denominations in the colony.®* 

In keeping with past practices, Cecil Lord 
Baltimore did little after 1660 to provide 
fQr the needg of hi§ fellow Catholics,. He 
<M, *R)twJvet, ejgjecfthe (IwKch hiewehs^ 
to do so, and was irritated by the weak 
effort put forth on behalf of Maryland. 
When Claudius Agretti visited Baltimore 
"at his villa near London".. io Jjbe 
proprietor angrily repudial«i ii^ 'iHpiif 
»on that he opposed the presence of reli- 



giioqs orders in his colony. He criticized the 
fkky Sfee,"»l>feh, iirfhieiK»d by this fake 
impression, had consigned no missionaries 
to Maryland in the course of twenty-four 
years. Baltimore lamented that there were 
but two ecclesiastics for about two thou- 
sand Catholics and that efforts to secure 
diocesan priests had been stymied because 
Maryland had been reserved for the Jesuits. 
After this meeting. Propaganda Fide sought 
to reach an accord with Baltimore in order 
to send "pious ecclesiastics" who met with 
his approval.®^ 

Despite a flurry of activity as a result of 
43ecil CalvertJs- ©•mplaint, Maryland re- 
mained a Jesuit province. On board from 
the beginning, the Jesuits had persevered 
through the various disruptions and main- 
tained their mission. In their annual letters 
they continfwd ^ -dniiti •eoa.vetts -mmmg 
the Protestants, and in spite of their small 
number, to serve the needs of Maryland's 
Catholics. Roman Catholics, in accordance 
with the govmiing principles, were ex- 
peettd'tO HiaiiitaSii their own defgy WittiOBt 
support of the government.®" 

If Catholics were a small minority of the 
population, they nevertheless had an im- 
portance which transcended their actual 
numbers. As was the case in England, 
Maryland Catholics tended to be found in 
the upper social stratum. After 1660, they 
assumed a pM^m l role far beyond vt4iat 
their numbers suggested, although never to 
the extent of the 1630s. With the appoint- 
ment of his son Charles as governor in 1661, 
Cecil was able to reestablish a network 
based on^HnHlKal and religious ties. In 1M& 
way he expected to build a following that 
would remain "faithful" to him. Obviously 
there was a strain of thinking, although 
never institutionalized, that religion was a 
*Mf<l!M af aet«r*sinlMg loyalty. <!liarles 
Calvert expected Catholics to vote as a 
block in the assembly in support of the 
propriety m a. miQffi «i ' -Hs^- foiter- 
esl."«^ 

IMike his father, ChaHes Calvert, as 
second lord proprietor, was not as sensitive 
to keeping his support as broadly based as 
possible. Under his leadership, the compo- 
sition of the council changed from one hav- 
ing a significant i%r@ttMant representaite 
to one dominated by Catholies «Ridt « flew 



38 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



Protestant relatives of the Calverts. Of the 
ten appointments made by Charles between 
1677 and 1684, only one went to an unre- 
lated Protestant. By confining his appoint- 
ments to a relatively small portion of Mary- 
land's population, namely. Catholics or 
Protestants who had married into the fam- 
ily, Baltimore made Maryland vulnerable 
to attacks from England. This was increas- 
Itigly true in the wake of the Popish plot 
(1678) and the anti-Catholic Exclusion Cri- 
sis (1679-1681) in England, which at- 
tempted to eliminate James, Duke of York, 
who was an avowed Catholic, as heir to 
Charles II. Ma^ylalri^■•^(l'^ts•■^^&t lacking in 
disgruntled subjects who were willing to 
raise a hue and cry in England. Ironically, 
in the case of the Catholic population, tol- 
eration had succeeded too well, and, by not 
showing the sensitivity to religious sensi- 
bilities that his father had, the third Lord 
Baltimore sowed the seeds of his own un- 
•doing.^^ 

The one group that seemed to have 
gained the least from toleration was the 
unchurched Anglicans. Although Charles 
maintained that their numbers were no 
greater than the C^SH^I^, their popiMefi 
was rapidly increasing by the late seven- 
teenth century. The immigrants of the 
1670s and 1680s tended to be adherents of 
the Church of England and they found little 
iff^me'^ «* !l^{lWttoiS«iW# Anglicanism 
in Maryland. Under the proprietorship of 
Charles Calvert, Anglicans become a vocal 
and dissident minority, who made their 
eomplaints directly to English authori- 
ti#s.»fliir tCTt'^sMn^Yeff, rfflWrth-B#«ng- 
land minister in Maryland, wrote to the 
Archbishop of Canterbury to inform him of 
the "Deplorable state & condition of the 
Province of Maryland for want of an estab- 
^ffttoyr* m mmm that there 
were only three ministers who were con- 
formable to the doctrine and discipline of 
«i#€hurch of England ti^^N* the approx- 
imate 20,000 Anglicans scattered through- 
out Maryland. The result was that Angli- 
cans "fell away" either to "Popery, Quak- 
erism or Phanaticisme." In addition, he 
illiilAtjKitled that without an established 
Church "the lords day is prophaned. Reli- 
gion despised, & all notorious vices com- 
mitted," so that Maryland has "become a 
Sodom of uncleaness & a Pest house of 



inquity." Yeo wanted the archbishop to use 
Ms tflflxiehefe iH thl English government to 
lobby for the establishment of a Protestant 
ministry in Maryland. "A hue and crye," a 
particularly virulent anti-Catholic tract, 
was sent in the same year. Its anonymous 
author demanded to know why Anglicans 
must submit to Maryland's "arbitrary gov- 
ernment" and thereby entangle "our inno- 
cent posterity un^if'*^8l^^rannicall yoake 
of papacy." Anglican unrest, combined with 
endemic anti-Catholicism, provided a real 
threat to toleration.^* 

The unchurched Anglicans seemed un- 
willing to accept the baste f^feS 'laM down 
by the Catholic Lords Baltimore. Given the 
relationship to which they were accustomed 
in England, Anglicans were quite uncom- 
fortable with having their ministers "mam- 
tained by a voluntary confiffl&OtftJfl dfthdse 
of their own persuasion," even though, as 
Charles Lord Baltimore pointed out, the 
situation was the same for "Presbiterians, 
Independents, Anab^tist, Quakers, & Ro- 
man Church.*' t'aiffttiii^tl^S MtMonary zeal 
of the Quakers and the affluence of the 
Catholics, Anglicans saw their only hope in 

tax-supported institution. Howe'^j'#«ir 
efforts to secure legislative support for an 
established ministry failed. Dissatisfied on 
so many counts, the Anglicans were a con- 
tinuing source of political unrest.'^* 

m ammeimsrio'^emm c* Eng- 
land were disgruntled. In an attempt to 
answer the charges that his government 
showed partiality "on all occasions towards 
those of the Popish Religion to the discour- 
agement of his Maje1^*^me^hm 
jects," in 1682 Baltimore produced a state- 
ment signed by twenty-five influential An- 
glicans. They acknowledged "the general 
freedom & priviledge which we and all per- 
sons whatsoeVfef . ! . enjoy" under proprie- 
tary government. From their own observa- 
tion, they knew that Baltimore's favors 
were impartially distributed without any 
respect to religious persuasion and that 
Protestants were well-represented in the 
government. However, perhaps because so 
many of the signees were related to the 
proprietor by marriage, their protestatSon 
bad little effect with English authorities. 
Charles Calvert's departure from the prov- 
ince in 1684 accentuated developments that 
could not be overcome by declarations. It 



I 



Thp Lords Baltimore and Toleration 



39 



Contemporary Perspectives ON RELiiCaoN IN Makyland, 1669, 1676 

. . . [DJivine goodnesse hath beene pleased to Land my foot uppon a province off 
Virginia called Mary-Land which is a Province distinct frq pi . the g overnment of 
Virginia: of which the Ld Baltemore is proprietor and goverrutPf'WmSlF'^lV 
goverment we enjoy a greate deale of liberty and Pticularly in matters of religion, wee 
have many that give obedience to the church of Roome, who have theire publique 
libery, our governour being of that Pswasion: wee have many also of the reformed 
religion, who have a long while lived as sheepe without a shepherd [TJhe last yeare 
brought in a young man from Ireland, who hath already had good successe in his 
worke: . . . how many young men are theire in England that want mip4f,||H|? pef^, 
too we cannot but judge itt their duty to come over and helpe us. 

— Letter of Matthew Hill to Richard Baxter, from Charles County, Mary- 
Land, 3 April 1669 

0 yee reverent Bishops in England Here lays the Keye of the work, and the popes 
service, why doe ye not take care for the sheep in Marykmi, m*^ ^md -fMfi^^>i^ 
pastores, as the pope doth to his papists, in America? 

Wee confess a great many of us came in servants to others, but wee adventured owr 
lives for it, and got owr poore living with hard labour out of the ground in a terrible 
Willdernis, and som have advanced themselves much thereby: And so was my Lord 
Baltemore but an inferior Irish Lord, and m is sayth one (4 the P^xs privy Agents 

in England. 

^^P^on^^Complaintfiro^^^ 



is understandable that he would entrust his 
government to a group of deputy governors 
who were either relatives or Catholics. 
However, with the death or departure of a 
number of Protestants by 1688, his goven- 
ment seemed to fit the image projected by 
disgruntled Protestants.®* 

The Calvert design was based on gaining 
the loyalty of Marylanders of differing re- 
ligious affiliations and tying them to the 
proprietary government. The Calverts had 
been successful to a remarkable degree 
among the Catholics and Quakers and to a 
lesser degree among Anglicans and other 
Protestant sects. But the success and visi- 
bility of the Catholics in the late 1680s, and 
the increasing anti-Catholicism of this pe- 
riod in England and America, worked 
against the continuation of their policy of 
toleration. Too many Marylanders were left 
out. For them Maryland had become a 
closed society that could only be opened by 
force of arms. The Protestant Revolution 



in Maryland destroyed the Catholic Cal- 
verts' bold experiment in religious tolera- 
tion. With the final establishment of the 
Church of England in 1701, both Quakers 
and Catholics were excluded from full 
membership in Maryland society.^^ 

Daring and resourceful, the Catholic 
Lords Baltimore had consistently ventured 
to rise above their age. Their effort to im- 
plement religious toleration cannot be di- 
minished by its ultimate failure, for they 
pointed to the future. Their failure brings 
to mind a comment on recent politics by 
Richard N. Goodwin. "Of all human activ- 
ities," Goodwin wrote, 

politics — the process of acquiring and using 
governmental or official power — is among 
the most responsive to shifting values and 
situations, always reflecting the dominant 
and visible themes of the human turbulence 
which creates it and which it attempts to 
govern. Hence politics cannot be under- 
stood or analyzed apart from the wider 
society which give it coloration and direc- 



40 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



tion. An artist may be an age ahead of bis 
time. Even tbe greatest pdBtickdi can only 

be a step or two ahead of his Actions • ' 

and public words based on a more profound 
vision than this may suit a prophet, but not 
a politician. His material is the desires and 
alitwdeRof livHigpsspld.** ^ .„ 

Marylanders, and for that matter English 
men and women, were not ready for 
broadly-based religious toleration in the 
seventeenth century. English History pro- 
vides comparable examples in the efforts of 
both James I and James 11, who attempted 
to extend toleration to Catholics and other 
disinters through executive power. But 
neither of these Stuart kings, popularly 
identified with absolutism, could establish 
toleration, a concept which ran so contrary 
to public opinion. That the CathoUc Lords 
Baltimore established and maintained tol- 
eration for as long as they did attests to 
their skills as proprietors of their colony. 
The failure of religious toleration came be- 
cause too many of their subjects no longer ^ 
saw the value of it. And this no Catholic 
Lord Baltimore could overcome. 

1 References 

The author wishes to express his apprecintiion- 
Mary Croy for her research assistance a«3*W1CIII' " 
Reverend Eric McDermott, S.J., who generously 
shared his extensive research collection on early 
Maryland with the author. 

1. The most exaggerated statement of this interpre- 
tation was made by the Catholic bishop, William 
T. Russell, in Maryland: The Land of Sanctuary, 
A History of Religious Toleration from the First 
Settlement until the American Revolution (Balti- 
more, 1907). The interpretation was main- 
streamed into American history primarily by 
Charles M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of Amer- 
ican History, 4 vols. (New Haven, 1932-1938), II, 
279. For a recent statement, see Susan R. Falb, 
"Advice and Ascent: The Development of the 
Maryland Assembly, 1635-1689" (unpublished 
Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, 1976), 
292-295, 301. Records of the Enfilish Province of 

the Society of Jesus, ed. Henry Foley (7 vols. 4. 
London, 1877-1893), III, 362. For an effort to 
manipulate the Roman bureaucracy by painting a 
dismal picture of English Catholic life, see the 
letters of the Discalced Carmelite Simon Stock to 
Propaganda Fide in Luca Codignola, Terre D'A- 
merica E Burocrazia Romana: Simon Stock, Prop- 
aganda Fide E la colonia de Lord Baltimore a 5. 
Terranova, 1621-1649 (Venice, 1982), 107-176. 

2. Expressed in an outrageous manner, this interpre- 
tation formed the basis for the argument of Epis- 
cc^alian mkiister, C.E. Smith, in Religien Under 



the Barons Baltimore . . . (Baltimore, 1899). More 
balanced statements were made by Alfred Pearce 
Dennis, "Lord Baltimore's Struggle with the Jes- 
uits, 1634-1649," Annual Report of the American 
Historical Association, 1900, 2 vols. (Washington, 
D.C., 1901), I, 112, and Newton D. Mereness, 
Maryland as a Proprietary Province (New York, 
1901), 423-437. For a recent assessment, stated in 
bold terms but without the usual religious bias, 
see J. Frederick Fausz, '"By Warre Upon Our 
Enemies and Kinde Usage of Our Friends': The 
Secular Context of Relgious Toleration in Mary- 
land, 1620-1660" (unpublished essay in author's 
possession). For an early statement of anti-Ca- 
tholicism in Maryland historiography see, John 
Gilmary Shea, "Maryland and the Controversies 
as to her Early History," American Catholic Quart- 
erly Review, X (October, 1885), 658-677. As Ba- 
bette May Levy noted, "Not a few articles and 
books treat Maryland's early History with due 
regard to the part religion played in the proprie- 
tary colony's varied fate during the upheavals in 
England's troubled seventeenth century. And a 
goodly portion of these essays reveal as much 
about their author's point of view, not to say 
prejudice, as they do about conditions in Mary- 
land" ("Early Puritanism in the Southern and 
Island Colonies," Proceedings of the A merican An- 
tiquarian Society, LXX [April, 1960], 221). 
Thad W. Tate, "The Seventeenth-Century Ches- 
apeake and Its Modern Historians," in The Ches- 
apeake in the Seventeenth-Cenlur, : Essays on An 
glo-American Society Politics, ed. Thad W. Tate 
and David L. Ammerman (Chapel Hill, 19%), 3- 
50. 

There was a flurry of interest in the origins of 
toleration at the time of the 300th anniversary of 
the colony's founding. See Matthew Page An- 
drews, "Separation of Church and State in Mary- 
land," The Catholic Historical Review, XXI (July, 
1935), 164-176, and J. Moss Ives, "The Catholic 
Contribution to Religious Liberty in Colonial 
America," ibid. (October, 1935), 283-298. Re- 
newed interest in toleration is evidenced in John 
D. Krugler, "Lord Baltimore, Roman Catholics, 
and Toleration: Religious Policy in Maryland dur- 
ing the Early Catholic Years, 1634-1649," ibid., 
LXV (January, 1979), 49-75; David W. Jordan, 
"'The Miracle of This Age': Maryland's Experi- 
ment in Religious Toleration," forthcoming in The 
Historian; and R.J. Lahey, "The Role of Religion 
in Lord Baltimore's Colonial Enterprise," Mary- 
land Historical Magazine, 72 (Winter, 1977), 492- 
511, hereafter MHM. 

For a 1635 Catholic vision of what Maryland could 
become, see To Live Like Princes: "A Short Trea- 
tise Sett Downe in a Letter Written by R. W. to 
his Worthy Freind C.J.R. Concerning the New 
Plantation Now Erecting under the Right 
Ho[nora]ble the Lord Baltemore, ed. John D. 
Krugler (Baltimore, 1976). 

For an assessment of the Catholic intellectual 
background see, Thomas O'Brien Hanley, S.J., 
Their Rights & Liberties: The beginnings of Reli- 
gious And Political Freedom in Maryland (West- 
minster, 1959). 



The Lords Baltimore and Toleration 



41 



6. Toleration was a practical necessity comparable 
to Catholic France's acceptance of the Bdict of 
Nantes in 1598. As Owen Chadwick argued, the 
Edict was accepted "not because Catholic France 
affirmed toleration to be merely right, but because 
without the Edict France must be destroyed." 
ii. . ^l^mm Uniformity to Unity, ed. G. F. Nutsll and 
#weii ChMiirick (London, 1962), 9. 
fthHn IMerted that "among all the countries 
^' ' •^ Hki mtttflM'd Aed by the Reformation . . . England 
* ' ■■''MHiltlliaH'llii far as toleration is concerned." Tol- 
• <8» %li» ( i><ftilt ^ Reformation, trans. T. L. We«tow, 
2 vole. (tonAm, 1960), II, 493. However, EngM 
" iNyliliBlM Miirbe judged in the context of M 
' et^mstatemi'Meki^imt at beet lax. On the penal 

■ kgislktion, sef^.'Wi' FWbes, "'Faith and true 
.rtlegiance', The Law and Internal Security of 
England, 1559-1714: A Study of the Evohition of 

'^'^the ParliameDt^M^ legislation and the Problem<iF 
' • J» Local En^«««ei«" (unpublished Ph.D. iKs- 
^ftation, University of California — Los Angeles, 
^6@«), passim, but especially, 82-90; and J. An- 
' ' 'H il W»a^aWM Ii iiilait ■ GmMic Recusancy in WKitshire, 

■ 4m^mK'mnMh,'«m), ch. i. 

4me Pelkical Works of James I, ed. ClMi^iNow- 
«jfrd Mcllwain (Cambridge, 1918), SBt' OffiMU K m as- 
Mlk fii^KNHta'iH'^Scligious UniiMH%<M^- 
--||iMt.linil«ii^>^lM!»t(W of Ec deM&MM^ Hk- 
tory, XVra (O^bw, I«61)i.a01««l6. ► ■ 
». m» b«ft< t^K^ m4)l9 iMalA Wrm. KMm 
The Development of Religious fo«w<^ftlt MWng- 
land, 4 vols. (Cambridge, WSMUS^J Huitkvilm, 
Jordan is badly dated wkm lt mmm^m^^llt^m.- 

■ ment of English CatholieA. - — ■ 

10. John Miller, /^peo*«t#MM#<»t i%«IM4<l6e&- 
1688 (Cambridge, 1973), ch. I4r Wkky 'mmetA, 

- The Stuart Age: A Histo^ ^ Er^lom^kuS^ 714 

- S(feondon, 1980), 318-320. 

M. Sarol Z. Weiner, "ThiirllAMia^iiliitiil^-fttody 
Elizabethan andAl#M|tedMM^iyM'^ltehol- 

t^'W^^9mtte^mv«e&»iMi^; ««« JMiMib/^HMgler, 
"Sir George Calvert's Resignation as Sect^idry of 
' 9»»te and the Founding of Maryland," A*^, M 
(Fall, 1973), 239-254, and "'The Face of a Prot- 
estant, and the Heart of a Papist': A Reexamina- 
tion of Sir George Calvert's Conver^n'to ^Braara 
Catholicism," Journal of Church dM^Mfle, 20 
lAMumii, IS^; ^-#31 . 

»oBrf nr KVili#»r«*Ph« •®M^rf'«»J»ilyi m^li- 
cism, and Court Politics in Early SeveSSBSfeith- 
Century England," The Historian, LIff'WIay, 
1981), 378-392; Lahey, "Role of Religion," 493. 

14. Martin J. Havran, The Catholics in Caroline Eng- 
iimd (Stanford, 1962), ch. 6. John Bossy, "T^e 

■■'iteiglish Catholic Community, 1603-1625," in The 
Reign of James VI and I, ed., AIM G. R. Smith 
(London, 1973), 101-102. CstmSi^m: BJWaard, 
^mriig mwrt eathoMcfem: ll« < IW as<i ikii fi«-re- 

1980), 14. ■ ' ' 

15. John Bossy, The English Ca«W«ft: Cmimtnity. 
1570-1850 (New York, 1976). 

16. Public Record Office. State Papers 16/495. Keith 
Lindley, "The Lay Catholics of the Reign of 
Charles I," JotemMof Eccl^imtieeil Hwtory, VIII 



(July, 1971), 2«6. ki D mhi>M , for example, Ca- 
tholicism su'frtx^ed msfAly Jftnong "gentry house- 
holds with their dependent bodies of servants" 
(Mervyn James, Family, Lineage and Civil Society: 
A Study of Society, Politics, and Mentality in the 
Durham Region, 1500-1640 [Oxford, 1974], 141- 
142). :. . .. . . 

17. Hibbaid, "Early Stuartr«(Ml8Be«ife,'H*«»warf of 
Modern History 52: 3-4. 

18. Thomas Hd^ics, S.J., History of the Society of 
Jestis in North America: Colonial and Federal, 2 
vols. (Cleveland, 1907), Documents, I, 3-5). "No 
excessive pressures on Catholics to a ii rigW j t* ter 
religion's sake existed after perha^lil^ Wt 
there remained strong incentives to invest iWiby«i- 
ness enterprise" (David Beers Quinn, En^aHi mid 
the Discovery of America, 14St-tmO Pew^ork, 
1974], 393. 

m The Archives 0 Mm^imd. >ti. WiHiaia IHand 
' Browne et a/., •7y »WBs*T;0 date {BMlltote, 
MiB- ), V, 267-268. Hereafter cited as miMnsh. 
20. A Declaration of the Lord Baltemore's f%lvltttion 
in Maryland; Wherein is set forth how Englishmen 
may become Angels, the King's Domirrions be ex- 
tended and the adventurer attain Land'mmi^Gear; 
together with the other advantages of'tteif^Sweet 

31. muM m' Wmui, "^oimKy «ai Society in 
B«ri{f Maryland" (unpublished Ph.D. dtosa^ion, 
U»!*e»si1y of Iowa, 1975), 32-36. 

mums. CiMhA ThoMas^ ^MMMAKe^wKi^r-that 
#tt^i#e 1^tm''^im "lij^'g^Murity of Coiftiam 
IWt^ l^'dfltiiitiMi^lIlM 4' expected front tMs 
Government" (ComvMS^W^^S^vmt*, Ifi^April 
1638, The Calvert n^e^, t famMMte, 
18^-1898], 1, 172-173). 
23. Bsllteore to Sir Thomas Wentworth, 10 January 
Wt^fm, the Eari ef Straff orde's Letters and dis- 
f0mes .. ..^''W. Knowler, 2 vols. (L<««tem, 
• f?i6^ I;^li-«8;l«iwwd Walkins to Privy Coun- 
' Wt'^- ««!^-'ife3,-€a#isJfe?- of State Papers. 
' Domestic Series of the Reiift'^'Oun4m I . . >, ed. 
John Bruce et a/., 22 vols. (Lo«iBWtHl8IB8«-iSe8), 
1633-1634, 261; Menard, "Economy and Society," 
37. The Venetian Ambassador reported the num- 
ber as 800 (Calendar of State Papers and Manu- 
scripts Relating to English Affairs Existing in the 
Af^tmes4md-€o9mims «/ ^fuce Skwdon 

''a^miiWta^^:tiJit4i^9m^m^ym32- 

mrim^^ «f Werfy mt^tmOt, mm^mf, ed. 
aayton Coleman Hall (New Iteft; 1«1&^, 118; 
Krugler, "Lord Baltimore, RomaW lifc^SMcs, and 

• "T^iation," Catholic Higl&rimi Review, BS. 

m S^ratives of Early M^^^Mlred. Hall, 118; Bal- 
■^imm t® Wentworth, 10 January 1^3/34) Straf- 
• -fm^'^^ters, 1, 178; "The Lord Balt««io#i*fDec- 
laration to the Lords," Calvert Papetjti% 223-225; 
To Live Like Princes, ed. KruglerrM 

16: (%a»lw Caivert erred when he stated that "soone 
'ifasrtfee-'ftfSt iftantiBg" *te father had a law en- 
acted which guaranteed Christians "Liberty to 
Worshipp." Formal legislation did not come until 
1649. Md. Arch., V, 267. 

27. Kra!^, "Lord BaWmore, Roman Catholics, and 



42 



Maryland Histcmwal Magazine 



Toleration," Catholic Historical Rmiemi fit-75; 
Narratives of Early Maryland, ed. IMb 
m Md. Arch^446% W,v4ih^43BjB«# flapwrs, I, 
163. 

86. Records of the Governor and Company of the Mas- 
sachusetts Bay, ed. Nathaniel B. Sfaurtleff, 5 vols, 
in 6. (Boston, 1853-1854), I, 79, 82; John David 
V Kr^ler, "Puritan and Papist: Politics and Reli- 
#on in Massachusetts and Mwyland beft^ the 
'JpMtoration of Charles II," (w^blieiied Ph.D. 
: vjfegt rtation, University of Illinois at Uebana- 
-{a»Bipaign, 1971), ch. 5. 

30. Narratives of Early Maryland, ed. Hall, 103. 

31. Md. Arch., I, 72-73, 82-83; Hanley, Their Ri^ 
% Liberties, ch. 5; Edwin W»Ml^k S MM lfi m - 
ted Assembly of 1638/aii|i ^a i >W l iifaC' ^' M. 

M»^.%4Mmi^mtm» • 

32. Fatlwrli^MH^I^etttof^qsrfl^iiBcioinBelguin 
-.mttimimeriSmVitiAms, text, 1, 255-256); Nar- 

m^gm^fiMK^^Mltii^tmd, ed. Hall, 118; Records 
Jef'amSa^-«^''iJesus, ed. FUiir % i|@r^; 
MfM^ilpm/:^ '165-166; 217-A. 

33. Lawrence C. Wroth, "The First Sixty Years of the 
Church of England in Maryland, 1632-1692," 
MHM, XI (March, 1916), 4, 12; George B. Scrivea, 
"Religious Affiliation in Seventeenth Centuty 
Maryland," Historical Magazine of the Prolestemt 
Episcopal Church, XXV (September, 1956), 2'Xl, 
222. There were only twenty-two Anglican clergy 
in Maryland before 1692 (Wroth, "First Sixty 
Years," MHM, 16; Records of the Society of Jesus, 
ed. Foley, III, 369-371). 

34. To Live Like Priruxs, ed. Krugler, 38. C(^ley to 
C^cil Lord Baltimore, 3 April 1638, Cabmrt Pa- 
pers, I, 21; Thomas Lord Arundel to Secretary ef 
State Sir Francis Windebanke, 17 February 1638/ 
39, P.R.O. State Papers 16/413/17; Krugler, "Lord 
Baltimore, Roman Catholics, and Tolerati(m," 
Qatholic Historical Review, 65-73. For a study very 
critical of the political leadership of Baltimore 
and Gov. Leonard Calve^,8«» Steven Douglas 
Crow, "'Left at Libertie': 'flhe'^fects of the Eng- 
lish Civil War and Interregnum on the American 
Colonies, 1640-1660" (unpublished Ph.D. disser- 
tation, University of Wisconsin, 1974), 18-20, 23, 
24. 

35. Records of the Society of Jesus, ed. Foley, III, 381; 
John Winthrop, The History of New England 
From 1630 to 1649, pd. Jamea Saxage, 2 vols. (2nd 
ed., Boston, 1858>, Hj 72, IM^Md. Arch., IV, 103, 
204. The first encounter between the people of 
Massachusetts and the sailors of the Dove, who 
had been sent in 1634 to trade corn for fish, 
established something less than cordial relations. 
Winthrop reported that some of the Bay settlers 
aboard the Maryland vessel were reviled by the 
Maryland sailors who called them "holy brethren" 
and by cursing and swearing "most hOTribly" 
{Journal, ed. Savage, I, 172). Gibbons eventually 
relocated in Maryland. On 20 January 1650/51 
Baltimore appQin^d him to the Coyncil and 
named him "Adll^Ml «f«m^imime"i1lfiiirs/^h.. 
Ill, 261-262). 

36. Md. Arch., I, 270; IV, 262. Henry More, S.J., 
Anglia Historia (1645) in Hughes, Society of Jesus, 
Doc., 1, 126-126. RuAsell R. M»iard, "MoiykMd's 



ktlM^ m. Mac^s^" % #wRn, -1M), 124- 

140. For Baltimore's legal problems in England, 
see Krugler, "Puritan and Papist," 265-267, and 
James W. Vardaman, "Lord Baltimore, Parlia- 
ment and Cromwell: A Problem of Church and 
State in Seventeenth-Century England," JourmU 
of Church and State, 4 (May, 19^^ §1-46. 

37. Md. Arch., Ill, 187, 201. In 16W 

plained that the office of sheriff^tamic^^plM fay 
one "who hath tmmmilt^mitm^lS'iii'l^tf'i'^ is 
ROW a chiefe PreMMII^i^lMK«0||NM^, MS). 

m Md Arch., IH, JM. • .... 

il> in the wortte lg>hwl Bstani^^ Qmii- BkiMey, 
"to prevent the infection from reaching that 
Country, made severe laws against the Puritans." 
(77ie History and Premiti Suite of Virgima, ed. 
Louts B. Wright [Gh«nielM«>ile, 1968], 63). 

40. The Statutes at Large . . . o/ Virginia fremtlmfirst 
Session the Legislature in the Year tSSSt, ed. 
William W. Hening, 13 vols. (Richmond, 1809- 

• 1823) I, 277, 341, 359; Winthr<^j, Joumml, ed. 

%mmM, 93-94, 4(ni.,kmmmkSmm'jUl^(oHs 

FliM ki Maryland: A Mb' 9nimitte'mfi>&MmelHa- 
'mwe or a Relation of em Assault mack by divers 
^i^epists and Popish Officers of the Lord Balta- 
more's against the Protestmts bii^MK'yimid . . . 
(London, 1655), as r^scinted hi JiMil^> K (S^- 
tember, 1908), 229. ' ' ' 

41. Md. Arch., UI^ 85, 117, iM, If4; I, 44-45, 
210-^13^. 

42. Aid, If 404, 431. Dennis M. Moran, "Anti- 
t^Mbi^ieiwi in Early ifyt^im^-Se^ilimi .TJm Pu- 
ritan Muence," Amn^mm Mmm ml 
ma^amh$tPhiladelphi&0gemm, IS^H S at mrnim , 

48. Baltimore t© Gov. Stone, 26 August 1649, Md. 
Arch., I, 262-26S. The extant records of the 1649 
Assembly mm>ii0Umj0^. Only the results of the 
last day of «te il W g i jl "w^fek session remain. This 
means ^at any aBstH n aMit of tim. Act iiiiuet be 
tentative (Kru^er "Pmittan and Pttpkiti" Tlt- 
276). 

44. Baltimore to Gov. Stone, 26 August 1649, Md. 
Arch., 1, 272. On the negative impact of this letter, 
see Crow, "'Left at Libertie'," 134-135. 

45. Md. Arch., I, 244. Much of the earlier historical 
literature is partisan in nature. Exponents of 
Catholic and Protestant viewpoints have claimed 
credit for the "liberal" aspects of the Act while 
jl^bimpting to pin the more severe aspects of the 
' ti^tet religion (Smith, Religion under the Balti- 

mores, 319; Russell, Land Qf S^mtitfJ, 201, 205). 
This assembly was not MMtor-a 9af itan infhience. 
The majority of Puritans were yet to enter Mary- 
land. As far as the religious make-up of the assem- 
bly, it is probable that Catholics still dominated, 
but "an accurate reconstruction of the member- 
ship is impossible" (Falb, "Advice and Ascent," 
309). This part of the Act should be compared to 
Baltimore's "An Act for Felonies," presented to 
the assembly in 1639 {Md. Arch., 1, 71-72). 

46. Md Arch., I, 245-246. Baltimore undoubtedly 
added this last section to induce further Puritan 
migration. He may have been already negotiating 
wkh Robert Brooke, "a well-te-do En^sh Puri- 



The Lords Baltimore and Toleration 



43 



tan" who intended "to tTtm^mt immrif ion wife 
light sons and faari^ mA a Ghwct NMWtoer of 
other Persons" to Unrykmi t*«„ . ' 

*5. Md. Areh.,1, 246-247. • O r T^nmr' tf^ 
48. The document was signed on 17 April 1650 and 

was printed in John Langford, A Just and Cleere 58. 
Refutation of a False and Scandalous Pamphlet 
Entithd Babylons Fall in Maryland &c and a true 

towards those s^ fwm^f p i mmmi ml^mn hi4me il^ 
of their greatest tMttmme . . . ^i0i^im, lii^), in 
MHM, IV (mmih, I9m, m Md. ArOi., I, ai8- 

4®. fl»e IjBBrf flilltewefe'* Cme, Concerning the Prov- 
' ' WmSf MS^m^.'^mMmn 1653), in MHM, IW 
(June, 1909), 171-172; Md. Arch., Ill, 264, 271, 
276, 311-312; "A Surrender of Virginia to the 
Parliamentary Commissioners, March 1651-52," 
Virginia Mc^azine of History and Biography, II 
ifi&y, tWi^ 34; Kn^, "VtmlumtM Pt^iat," 

50. Md. Arch., 1, 340-341. How many Catholics re- 
mained in Maryland at this point is a matter of 
conjecture. John Hammond maintained "they are 
but few." Hammond versus Heamonds or an An- 
•HW to an audacious Pamphlet, published by an 
' ^fewpbii ent and ridiculous Fellow, named R(^er 
Heamans (London, 1656), in MHM, IV (Septem- 
ber, 1909), 239 



51. Md. 



IK 384, 424; Falb, "Adviee md As- 



Md. Arch., XLI, 132-133, 144-146, 170-171, 566- 
567; Edwin Warfield Beitzell, The Jesuit Missims 
of St. Mary's County, Maryland (privately printed, 
1959), 29. 

SB. Md. Arch.i XV, 13; G«ot|^ Al#<^, A Charoctfr @f 
the Proving of Mary-Lemd.^^^d^m iMt » €* 
lection of Historical Letters (London, 1666), in 
Narratives of Early Maryland, ed. Hall, 349. 

54. Md. Arch., V, 133; Kenneth L. Carroll, "Elizabeth 
Harris, the Founder of American Quakerism," 
Quaker History, LVIII (Autumn, 1968), 96-111, 

" ■>*nd "Persecution of Quakers in Early Meiryland 
(1658-1661)," ibid., LIII (Autumn, 1964), 78, 80. 

55. Kenneth L. Carroll, "Quaker Opposition to the 
Establishment of a State Church in Maryland," 
MHM, LXV (Summer, 1970), 153. David W. Jor- 
dan, in describing Baltimore's willingness to ex- 
tend religious freedom to the Quakers, called it 
"another calculated effort" to broaden his support 
("'Gods Candle' within Government: Quakers and 
Politics in Early Maryland," William and Mary 
Quarterly, 3rd. ser., XXXIX [October, 1982], 6^. 

56. J. Reaney Kelly, Quakers in the Founding of Anne 
Arundel County, Maryland (Baltimore, 1963), 1. 

57. David W. Jordan, "Maryland's Privy Council, 



60. 



61. 



63. 



64. 
65. 



66. 



67. 



68. 



1687-1715," in Lem, Society, emd Polkics in Early 
Marytand, ed. Aubrey C. Land, Lois Green Carr, 
and Edward C. Ps^nfuse (Baltimore, 1977), 76; 
jOTdan, "Quakers and Polities," WMQ, 636-6S7, 
645; Carroll, "Quaker Opposition," MHM, 155. 
Md. Arch., V, 133. Richard Shepherd, an Engli^ 
captain who traded in Mm»l . M)4» 4nMMMie«% 
overstated the situation wMNi^ ^Umti^M litl 
that "there aae thi^j^| a tf «|) (H | »j^,B«|e j?fy^" 

Umktd D&mmmts in the Premgamia Fide 
Af^Aim: A CM^titef, ed. FMar Kkmeirity, 1st 
series, 8 veto, to dMe (Wadwi^on, D.C, 
1966—), III, t^, 203. For the p€^e« of Propa- 
ganda Fide in the period of George Caliwft's New- 
foundland colony, see CodignoUf fM>e &¥6ntmca 
E Burocnuia Romano. Agretti was on a special 
mission to examine the condition of ecclesiastical 
affairs in England. His report was dated 14 De- 
cember 1669. The two Franciscans who arrived in 
1673 may hove hem as a temdt «t StMMHMe's 
complaint (Becorab of the Sdeietlf'' ^ 
Foley, III, 392). 

Calvert to Lord Baltimore, 2 June 1673, Calvert 
Papers, I, 281-282. For the years 1671, 1672, 1673 
and 1674 the Jesuits claimed 184 converts and 
299 infant baptisms (Records of the Society of 
Jesus, ed. Foley, III, 392). 
Commission to Charles Calvert, 14 September 
1661, Md. Arch., Ill, 439; Charles Calvert to Bal- 
timore, 26 April 1672, Calvert Papers, I, 264-265. 
Lois Green Carr and David W. Jordan, Maryland's 
Revolution of Government, 1689-1692 (Ithaca, 
1974), 221; Miller, Popery and Politics, ch. 8. 
Md. Arch., V, 267. David W. Jordan, "Political 
Stability and the Emergence of a Native Elite in 
Maryland," Chesapeake in Seventeenth Century, 
ed. 'Tate and Amm«'in«Ai, 24$. 
Md. Arch., V, 130-131; 143. 
Ibid., I, 404, 406; II, 86; V, 133. For a different 
perspective, see Wroth, "First Sixty Years," 
MHM. 

Md. Arch., V, 300, 353-355; Jprdan, "Privy Coun- 
cil," Law, Society, and PoUtUs*, ed. Land, Carr, 
Papenfuse, 75. 

Carr and Jordan, Revolution, 212-214, 218-219. 
For the petitions of eighteenth-century Maryland 
Catholics for equal participation with all other 
subjects "in All the Rights and Privileges" of 
government, see "Popery in Maryland," The 
American Catholic Historical Researcher, n.s., IV 
(April, 1908), 258-276, and the anonymous state- 
ment, "Liberty and Property or the Beauty of 
Maryland Displayed," in United States CatheUc 
Historical Magazine 111 (1890), 237-263. 
"The Shape of American B^im," Gammeraary, 
43 (Jtme 1967), 25. 



Sources of Political Stability and Upheaval 
in Seventeenth— Century Maryland 



This mfvmvemm^Tsmvm Gmisa- 

peake was frequently the scene of political 
turmoil. In the first twenty-seven years, 
Maryland colonists experienced armed 
clashes with ViipniaajS in 1635, an "inva- 
iioil* dn^liSKal Mjislffion in 1645, a pitched 
battle in 1655 between Lord Baltimore's 
forces and those of a rival government es- 
llablished by Parliamentary commissioners, 
«nd a second attempt at rebellion in 1660. 
Nearly thirty years of mostly peaceful de- 
velopment after 1660 were interrupted by 
the overthrow of proprietary government 
in 1689, which brought royal authority to 
Maryland for the next twenty-five years. 
In Virginia, the council temporarily ousted 
the royal governor in 1635, Parliamentary 
commissioners took control of the govern- 
raewt in 1662, ttnA in 1676 an armed rebel- 
lion led by Nathaniel Bacon resulted in the 
burning of Jamestown and a number of 
executions before the royal governor. Sir 
William Berkeley, restored authority. 
HRefete»#fisd«6tefe *wwH&i^^ to argue 
that seventeenth-century Chesapeake so- 
ciety was inherently unstable, even chaotic. 



Lois Green Carr is Historian, St. Mary's City Com- 
mission, based at the Hall of Records, Annapolis. 
Since the completion of her Harvard Ph. D. in 1968, 
she has contributed significantly to the renaissance in 
ieventeenth-century Chesapeake scholarship through 
'widely-quoted essays in the Maryland Historical Mag- 
azine, The William and Mary Quarterly, and in collec- 
tions such as Law, Society, and Politics in Early Mary- 
land, ed. Aubrey C. Land, Lois Green Carr, and Ed- 
ward C. Papenfuse (1977) and The Chesapeake in the 
Seventeenth Century, ed. Thad W. Tate and David L. 
Ammerman (1979). Dr. Carr's other publications in- 
clude Maryland's Revolution of Government, 1689- 
1692 (1974), co-authored with David W. Jordan; 
Maryland . . . at the Beginning (1976), with Russell R. 
Menard and Louis Peddicord; and Robert Cole's World: 
Agriculture and Society in Early Maryland (in prepa- 
ration), with Rtissell R. Menard and Lorena S. Walah. 



Dtid^Hive ^fgeiled tiMtt p<ri^tio<(l ^tii»es of 
troubles" were the likely outcome of this 
social disruption.' Milder assessments have 
suggested that at the very least the absence 
of a ruling elite — conscioi^ of its eb;liga- 
tions and right to govern as part di the 
natural order of things, and identified with 
landed wealth held for generations in a 
particular locality — was an underlying 
cause of these breakdowns of authority. 
Seventeenth-century Chesapeake leaders, 
this agrument goes, were not born to power 
but had to earn their positions. Conse- 
quently, the social and political structure 
"was too new, too lacking in the sanctions 
of time and custom, its leaders too close to 
humbler origins and as yet too undistin- 
guished in style of life" to provide real 
politick irtdWlityi^ 

Colonists came to the Chesapeake to 
make their fortunes, the argument contin- 
ues, and those who could afford the labor 
on which the acquisition of major wealth 
depended unmercifully exploited their serv- 
ants. Masters "looked out for number one," 
while those who emigrated as servants 
(some 70-85 percent of all seventeenth- 
century arrivals) faced major difficulties in 
establishing themselves or^-^W^ wtere free 
of their four to five years of service. They 
worked as laborers or short-term tenants, 
moving from household to household or 
farm to farm. As immigrants they usually 
had no kin in the Chesapeake and severely 
unbalanced sex ratios — three men immi- 
grated for each woman over most of the 
century — foteed mmy to pm^Ppcme rmi- 
riafe or pl^ev^ted them ffom marryiiig at 
all. Since life expectancies wete short, due 
to the lethal disease environment of the 
early Chesapeake, many of these ex-serv- 
ants died before they could save enough to 



Maryland Historical Macazine 
Vol. 79, No. 1, Spring 1984 



Political Stability^md Upheaval 



acquire land and become settled members 
of a community.'' 

' Short life expectancies had other conse- 
quences for stability in this society. Early 
death created high turnover among office- 
holders and hence curtailed the benefits 
that might otherwise arise from experience. 
This was particularly important where 
there was a shortage of men whose birth 
and education would have qualified them 
for such leadership in England. Men of 
humble English origins, "long livers" whose 
ability and good luck had brought success, 
often rose to positions of power but then 
failed to live much longer. There was a 
quick turnover of able but uneducated, un- 
trained, and sometimes unscrupulous men 
who occupied ■0SttitvS^^'^fk^s there was 
instability from the hoW^*W^^ ^ 
Chesapeake society. 

Most of the facts on which this interpre- 
tation is based are not disputed. In the first 
crtrtbry of settl^HlrtftT^lfHfft^ short; moit' 
immigrants came as servants (although 
there is some disagreement about the ex- 
tent of opportunities);'' immigrants mostly 

, arrived without kin and lacked the family 
afid'^BH^hfCffity ties that ruled their behav- 

1 ior in England; and ill-trained and unedu- 
cated men held public office. Nevertheless, 
other facts and the inferences drawn from 
them allow a somewhat different picture of 
Chesapeake society to emerge. 

This essay will examine seventeenth- 
century Maryland society and politics in 
tlie light of these contentions. The essay 
first will argue that this society was not 
chaotic, although the standards of what 
constituted "order" may not be those that 
we would accept. Informal community net- 

' w^H4(^*!lff^mal institt«idftS etf^«fl gov- 
ernment, as they developed over the cen- 
tury, provided the services essential to 
maintaining order. Second the essay will 
attempt to exp^n the causes of the more 

' ^@HMidi8ruptioi^'ol»<il#1i«^- 

1 teenth century. - r 

J What do we mean by political stability 
and social order? Political stability has 
been defined as "the acceptance by society 
of its political institutions and of those 
classes of men or officials who control 

'. Btft 96ch a id^usitkm <^n*(jt easily 



fit the circumstances in a new and growing 
society trying to develop institutions appro- 
priate to its needs. Better suited is one that 
focuses on transfers of political authority. 
When men negotiate their differences and 
transfer authority by orderly and agreed- 
upon procedures without dependence on 
force, their institutions and society reveal 
political stability; when force is used, we 
have political disorder.^ Social order is 
harder to define, since conceptions of what 
constitutes order are likely to be high in 
cultural or ideological content. In the con- 
text of the seventeenth-century Chesa- 
peake, social order, as here used, will mean 
the existence of generally-accepted norms 
of behavior that protect persons and jprop- 
erty and that are, in fact, enfoi^ld^lSife^fei 
ment can occur through informal commu- 
nity sanctions as well as through the oper- 
ation of governmental institutions that in- 
habitants support for the sake of order. 
"IB^SfeffcTPftSti&rch, much still unpublii#i!fft, 
illustrates how community networks sub- 
stituted for English kinship connections 
and provided aid, comfort, and selfhelp in 
areas of the seventeenth-century Chesa- 
peake v(^#teTlj^ of 1!o native-born 'Mdtflts 
had yet appeared. This work makes clear 
that "looking out for number one" was by 
no means the only, and probably not the 
primary, daily rule by which Maryland col- 
onists lived.* 

A study of St. Clement's Manor and en- 
virons in Maryland reveals the pattern of 
personal contacts as an area became set- 
tled. By 1661, about 28 families lived there, 
fewer than two per square mile, but ten 
years later, the number of households had 
doubjed. For each family, the territory 

senting a two hour walk or an hour's horse- 
back ride, and an additional half hour of 
rowing if St. Clement's Bay had to be 
m>spfd — an arw acceesible for neigh- 
!RM(J8?f im^M. ■ mm, -tm a typical 
household on St. Clement's was within 
two-and-a-half miles of fifteen other 
households and within five or six miles of 
about twenty-five, soilie ef them ^crc^s St. 
Clement's Bay. By l^(7I-«fest'fiFHiffifek%«'e 
within two-and-a-half miles of twenty- 
five households and within five or six miles 
df tixty. These distances could be traveled 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



by everyone, and the majority of all con- 
tacts took place within them. However, rich 
people traveled farther than did the poor 
and had a more distant network of connec- 

Within these bounds, families estab- 
lished networks of neighborhood selfhelp 
without which life would have been much 
more difficult and bleak. The transmission 
e€ news was of great importance in a culture 
that was mostly oral. Families exchanged 
tools and labor. Neighbors nursed one an- 
sither in illness and joined together in 
mourning — sometimes carousing — at a fu- 
neral. They took in or assisted orphaned 
children who had no kin to help them and 
stood as godparents to the children of 
neighbors, an important substitute for fam- 
ily connections. Of course, differences in 
wealth and status affected these relation- 
ships, but even Thomas Gerard, the lord of 
St. Clement's Manor and creditor to many 
small planters in the area, nursed a w&re 
humble neighbor in his sickness.'^ 

One of the most important acts of neigh- 
borliness, in England as well as in Mary- 
land, was to bear witness in various circum- 
g^iimm. - Although few men 
women at St. Clement's Manor could read 
or write, they could listen and remember. 
When wills or deeds required the signature 
of witnesses, illiterates made their marks; 
but their anwrittem i^nes* oflen had eveft 
greater importance. If men made oral agree- 
ments, the presence of neighbors was an 
essential part of the proceedings in case of 
future dispute. In 1667, for example, Rich- 
ard Foster and John Tennison asked Peter 
Mills and James Green to witness their 
efforts to partition manor land they had 
purchased together. Twelve years later, 
when the decision was disputed in court. 
Mills and Green testified to the events that 
had occurred that day.'' People often asked 
neighbors to take note of boundary mark- 
ers, usually trees. Trees could die, and later 
generations needed information as to where 
they had stood. A kind of community mem- 
ory had to be developed in an oral culture, 
and we can see it emerging in Maryland 
Bft^ Mbo f b^gi^ ^ft Wftfee the rapi<i<lKMifWM 
in population caused by death and immi- 
gration.'^ 

Gradually, kin coimections developed 



over time. A woman usually outlived her 
first husband and brought his children to 
the household of her second husband. The 
new couple then had children of their own. 
Stepparents, half-sisters, and half-bFoth- 
ers began to extend the family network. 
Moreover, Maryland-born girls married 
when very young (primarily because women 
were so scarce), and the immigrant man 
who married a young native acquired kin 
along with a wife. Given that only about 
half the children born survived to marry 
and that the influx of newcomers was con- 
tinuous until late in the century, kin net- 
works expanded slowly in proportion to the 
total population. Although the density was 
slight compared to that of an English vil- 
lage, these networks did grow and were of 
critical import^tCS- for supplying godpar- 
ents, guardians for orphans, family credit, 
and general assistance in time of need.'^ 

Watching and warding was another part 
of the community* JM'tw i o rk. There was no 
police force in any seventeenth-century 
community, whether in England or the 
Chesapeake, and the watchfulness of neigh- 
bors was a necessary element in maintain- 
ing law and ofdn. li'W»Btodt rem &6«iy m 
the St. Clement's Manor forest, protected 
only by their brand marks. A housekeeper 
who killed a steer or a hog was expected to 
keep,t|ie. fars to prove the marks were his, 
and anyone had the right to question the 
source of the meat. Even the lord of the 
manor had to produce ears to prove that he 
had not killed another colonist's hogs.'* 
People knew the belongings of their nearer 
neighbors, and a missing garment or table 
cloth or tool could not appear in someone 
else's house and go unnoticed. Neighbors 
intervened when servants were beaten be- 
yond that was considered allowable, when 
family quarrels led to violence, or when 
orphan children bound out for their ke^ 
were improperly cared for or abused.'^ 

In general, then, as in neigh- 
bors required conformity to community 
norms that protected person and property, 
and violators took a dangerous risk. Their 
neighbors could refuse to be their securities. 

that is, to agree to pay a sum of money or 
tobacco if the person they were standing 
for failed to peirloirm a pr(m>iee — a mm 



Political Stability and Upheaval 



47 



, could not b«H*owi money, purchase on 
credit, adminisfer an estate, or stand guard- 
ian to an orphan. Worst of all were the 
consequences if he fell into debt or ran afoul 
of the law, for, lacking security, he might 

J end up in jail.^* 

Neighborhood oversight and pressure to 
conform did not produce the same norms 
of conduct in every place and time, nor did 
they cover every person. Where immigrant 
communities were young and thinly settled, 
neighbors could ill afford to reject one an- 
other unless the provocation was very 
strong.'^ The inhabitants of such areas 

-<iiiftiii~ifatfhAfeiJdttl'8T"i«iitfiiii[iitf ilwMiiiiftA^jiii riiif ^^MUt^sMWAd^L 
WBie plWUHUiy MHSUB TWerclllV OT UBVXfllli DC 

havior than people were where settlement 
was denser and a Maryland-born adult 
population was growing. Nor was neighbor- 
hood protection e:8:tended to all. Strangers 
wWe suspect, sfrrwratilattrecognized man or 
woman without a permanent home might 
be a runaway servant, a felon escaping jus- 
tice, or worst of all, someone who might 
become a public charge. Without a resident 
tcn?ouch for them, strangers thought to be 
vagabonds might find themselves publicly 
whipped and "warned out" of a neighbor- 

' hood. In such ways, innocent people could 
fall through the safety net of neighborhood 
watchfulness and aid. Luckily, labor short- 
ages in the Chesapeake were so severe that 
most people found work and a home. The 
roving, jobless poor of England were not a 

^ major problem in the early Chesapeake.'* 
Indeed, until the 1680s, Maryland, at 
least, was good poor man's country for 
those who did not die too soon. The pro- 

lived in the households of others was always 
sizable at any one moment, but this status 
was usually temporary. The majority of 
householders acquired land, and most of 
thow who- tM -not «t teast became re^^ 
' nized members of a community networktr" 
, In both England and the Chesapeake, 
I neighborhood sanctions and the willingness 
or refusal of neighbors to support one an- 
other underlay the formal institutions for 
keeping law and order. Any one summoned 
to appear in court to answer a complaint, 
^ or even to be a witness, could be required 
to offer securities to ensure his appearance 
and would be put in the sheriffs custody if 
I he maliiw«^'Mt»mmt'mvMi mmm i M»&mi : 



*o keep the peace prod behavior as well 
&s for payment of a fine fkjm tliose found 
guilty of an offense, unless jail or death 
were mandatory. A bond for good behavior 
was an especially serious matter that no 
one took lightly. The security required was 
often high, and breach of the bond meant 
not only prison for the offender but, ulti- 
mately, the loss of considerable property. 
His friends would have to pay but WmM 
then seek redress from him. The whole 
system of law and order depended heavily 
on the willingness of neighbors to take this 
kind of responsibility for one another and 
mt^tm il»^io<ns tkat the iktmt their 
refusal provided.^" 

Government institutions, of course, pro- 
vided nmmmiy itamewQik tkro^h 

•were imposed to 
protect life and property and to enforce 
contractual obligations, and the effective- 
ness of government was fundamental to a 
"well ordering" of neighborhoods.^' In 
Maryland ttte county courts and their mag- 
istrates, appointed by the governor, were 
the first level of government to which in- 
habitants related. The St. Mary's County 
Court was in existence by early 1638, four 
years after the founding of the colony. 
Shortly afterwards a court was functioning 
on Kent Island,^^ and as the colony grew 
$mi the need arose, more counties were 
created. 

The justices of Maryland's county courts 
had the basic powers and responsibilities of 
those in England. Their powers were based 
ott'-llieir-isctJMmissions a*M the OoHfHion 
Law, which, from the beginning of settle- 
ment, was assumed to be the law in Mary- 
land. Justices were conservators of the 
peace. A colonist could take his suspicions 
«l«8«M!^laiwte of wrongdoiitg to the nearest 
ijHiiiee, who would order the constable, ap- 
pointed by the county court, to bring the 
accused before him. If the constable had 
trouble, he c&uklimpE6S8 any inhabitant to 
help him, siftce under Cdmmon Law, all 
citizens were obliged to help quiet an affray 
or pursue a suspected offender. Once the 
accused was on hand, the justice examined 
him/her, and if he found sufficient cause, 
he bound over the accused to appear in 
mm^ Mm )»eeded to be 



r 



48 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



scattesred widely so that everyone mImM 
Imw*^ access to tJie T»eace-keeping services 
they provided. 

When the justices sat together in full 
county court, they had all the powers of 
English quarter sessions, plus some addi- 
tional jurisdiction in civil causes. The court 
could investigate all crimes and conduct 
trials for those offenses that did not carry 
ii^iliilties entailing loss of life or hmb. (Fe- 
lonies in which conviction led to death or 
mutilation were sent to the Provincial 
Court, the chief court of Common Law in 
Maryland.) But unlike quarter sessions, the 

so long as the case did not concern land 
titles. At first, jurisdiction was limited and 
only selected justices could exercise it; how- 
ever, 1679 until the early eighteenth 
efeiffiissy,- te 'ejeeewd^ t*^Il^eif a^awtei!^^ 
to all justices. One of the county court's 
main contributions in a society in which 
people often could not read or write was to 
keep a record of local indebtedness. In this 
economy tobacco played the frt* "Of money, 
and tobacco in the field was money locked 
in the ground, making credit essential to 
any planter until he had harvested his crop. 
Thus in both criminal and civil matters, 
county courts brought order to the localities 
and offered poor planters cheaper and more 
convenient justice than did the Provincial 
Coiart at St. Mary's Ci-by. ' . • 

The Maryland county courts pei^Mned 
administrative duties that in effect A'ade 
them function as local governments. The 
court granted liquor licenses; kept the stan- 
dards i&r ■ ^r^gbis tm^ 'tmrnrn iev," <8feter- 



jBii»@d and j-ecorded the length of service 
Seae frdm servants Who «rrf?«d withoiA in- 
dentures or who ran away or bore a bastard 
child. The justices heard complaints from 
servants against their masters. The court 
also provided public services by appointing 
and overseeing guardians for orphans; sup- 
plying relief for the poor; and ordering the 
construction and maintenance of roads, 
courthouses, and jails. Since these services 
entailed expenditures, the courts levied poll 
taxes to pay for them. 

The justices had the help of paid admin- 
istrators, the sheriff and the clerks. Of 
1llilti»,<^liW' ifkii^,-%^*^@i^ the 
governor, was the most important. In some 
ways he was a competing power in the 
community. Unlike the justices he took fees 
for^lMB A^vieee^ and the position was highly 
pretfHaMiK^ served process', ni«wte«rrests, 
took bail for appearance, ran the jail, im- 
paneled juries, collected and paid out offi- 
cers' fees, and collected and disbursed taxes 
not only for the county court but within 
fte cotinty for central gowmmfelKt courts 
and agencies. He also conducted elections 
to the Assembly. Above all, he represented 
the proprietor^simi^i'of the county, with 
power to raise a posse to quell disturbances. 

Also essential to the fiinctioning of the 
county courts were several unpaid local of- 
ficers and various kinds of juries. The 
eowts*-yearly apfMifteA constables, who 
broke up fights, reported offenders, and 
kept tax lists; highway overseers, who im- 
pressed inhabitants and directed their work 
on the roads; and pressmasters, who re- 



Local Courtesies 

'Y^t m6 tfie infuMtdras geHiTally affable, courmtts md Oiry t^iiMarit to 
strangers . . . and no sooner are they settled, but they will be visiting, presenting and 
advicing the stranger how to improve what they have, how to better their way of 
livelihood. ' ' " 

Justice is there duly and daily aetminisla^ed; hardly can any travaile two miles 
together, but they will finde S Jus^^ wM^itM;h power of himself to tve&f 'and 
determine mean differences, to secure and bind over notorious offenders, of which 
very few are in the Country. " 




— John Hammond, Leah and Rachel, Or, The Two FrvtthM Mmters 
Virginia and Mary-Land {1656) ' " 



Political Stability and Upheaval 



49 



when needed. The sheriff selected juries — 
grand juries, petit juries, and various kinds 
of juries of inquiry. 

What is striking to the modern eye about 
this structure of local government was that 
it depended on unpaid conscripted service 
of county inhabitants. Everyone was obli- 
gated to serve according to his station. Men 
of wealth and education (or as much of 
\Mt«fW^lM'''M^ and place c(»rt*TWttSter) 
served as justices, and with the sheriff, 
acted as county rulers with power and au- 
thority. Others, lower in position, per- 
formed the thankless tasks of constables 
and highway dvmff^e^. hriiddition, every 
free man, regardless of status, was liable to 
selection for some kind of jury service. Re- 
^S^l to serve or neglect of duty were subject 
to penalties as an offense against the com- 
munity. These notions of community obli- 
gation, based on status, underlay the func- 
tioning of local institutions in England at 
the manofffw^ilh, borough, and shire levels 
and were transported to Maryland as part 
of the cultural baggage from the home- 
land. ■ 

Such a system of local government could 
l«!ll^W(ter, mete mi^'jtMfe^v ^AtH*!**"^ 
public services only if everyone played his 
part in accepting office, in undertaking nec- 
essary tasks, and in recognizing the author- 
ity of those who gave and carried out com- 
fmiiff.'iM 'jw^tfeifed -«gi ! tt ttiig!rtt i^,- ^anly 

death, absence of kin, and shortage of well- 
born leaders create conditions that brought 
disorder, failure of justice, and the break- 
dewa c^jieeded services? 

^et«wt"«cr#es"suggest thaf Icxeal gcremi- 
ment in seventeenth-century Maryland 
contributed to stability.^'' One reason was 
that participation in county government in 
this period was extraordinarily broad. In 
filling unpaid, conscripted local offices and 
juries, the justices and the sheriff thought 
less of efficiency and experience and mOFe 

all the eligible inhabitants. In two Mary- 
land counties studied in some detail, heads 
of household of any economic status were 
likely to have served as constables or high- 

their careers. About 1700, every resident 
landowner in newly-formed Prince 
George's Coiaitty served ^it le«Bt once in one 



of these positions during his lifetime, unless 
he had earlier been appointed to higher 
office or, as a Catholic, was by that date 
ineligible/' Although county office began 
to be more restricted to landowners as the 
seventeenth-century progressed, as late as 
1700 some 67 to 75 percent of householders 
at any one time owned land, and many 
tenants continued to be selected for service. 
Nearly WH^^ptsfrtatrnft^ te wae tt^erti -^ti 
each county would likely be asked at some 
point to contribute their time and energy 
to local government, and almo«t>*«B. i«c- 
cepted the obligation to do so. - 

Wlfe-lsmot to say tiiat ittdividtiirk never 
misbehaved. Men refused to obey con- 
stables, who had to call on the sheriff for 
assistance. Even the sheriff could meet de- 
fiance and had to raise ^hm pewer of the 
county to help him. MeH lost their 
cases could lose their tempers, and the jus- 
tices had to set them in the stocks to cool 
off. "Hlfelt drinking together mfiMi ^kmrn^ 
loose-tongued and ridicule or attack the 
justices. The courts fined such offenders for 
contempt, then often accepted their apolo- 
gies and remitted all or part of the penalty. 
TbB ebOiMWf mt-e peAa^rnfWe tenteftt than 
their English counterparts would have 
been. So it seemed, at least, to the English 
royal governors of the 1690s. But none of 
the seventeenth-century records surest 
^Im^-mmf mikn Mbvttially fkmiM 
orders of the county courts or their author- 
ity.^« 

Although the Maryland governors made 
em^ efloFt to appoint justices and sheriffs 
whotse'birth andTSducartotrwoftrld cftmmand 
the respect of the neighborhoods they 
served, the number of men quahfied to hold 
such positions was much smaller than the 
need. Men of low sodal origins who had 
become successful pMntfers were appointed 
in the absence of those better qualified. 
Many had arrived as indentured servants. 
l%fewifhicite» 1*806; ifrlfiott counties tl»i* 
was very often at least one illiterate justice, 
and at first even sheriffs were sometimes 
illiterate, despite their fiscal responsibili- 
ties.-" 

OhWh'lAiese circumstasitres, most of the 
county rulers gained status through ap- 
pointment to office, the reverse of the prac- 
tisBfe in Engkord. Tfeey were not b(wn to 



m 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



power, but learned by doing. In Maryland, 
local office was an honor to be welcomed, 
not a burden to be endured or resented 
because it interfered with goals of personal 
progress. While inhabitants occasionally 
asked to be excused from serving, Thomas 
Long of Baltimore County was certainly 
more typical. In 1686, after being dropped 
from the bench, he complained of the 
%mdall, ignominy, and repitaiWf^ Mrii 
received from "his neighbors as a person 
not worthy to serve."^® 

Justices who proved to be of vicious char- 
acter were dismissed, but otherwise, once 
appointed, they wei« usaa-lly recoramis- 
sioned and served until retirement or death. 
There was little opportunity for political 
MliBWuvering in making appointments be- 
cause of the shortage of qualified men and 
rapid turnover from high mortality. Very 
few men obviously qualified by birth or 
wealth — those who had acquired, say, one 
tli©«*and acres or more of land — failed to 
be appointed. The county rulers might 
quarrel among themselves, and occasion- 
ally complain about particular appoint- 
ments, but narrow and long-term factions 

From the bottom to the top of county 
government, then, we find broad partici- 
pation in local affairs by men with a visible 
e^q^itment to the communities, frem the 
l(lA«irier8e*Vai!t'tea««f kaidto the-plaisfUM' 
who had already made his fortune. This 
wide participation in itself contributed to 
social stability. The need for law and order 
ajid public serwces gave everyone the in- 
fcentive to ttooperate, so long as no one, by 
community norms, carried an unfair bur- 
den or exercised unreasonable power. Com- 
munity respect accorded humble men com- 
pensated for the time and trouble they 
could otherwise ill afford. Holding offices 
of power improved the social position of 
men with rising fortunes. Every man who 
contributed time and effort advertised 
himself and his neighbors his commitment 
to social order and strengthened the au- 
thority of government. 

Were the county rulers conscientious? 
DM lecal g& v wr ma eii fe s -^sery^ tw* Aeir in- 
tended functions? The answer is yes, 
by the standards of the time and place. 
County courts sometimes itud t@ <be {}dflt- 



poned because of "vehement couldness of 
the weather" or because so many justices 
were sick that a quorum could not be had. 
But in counties for which records survive, 
the court always met several times a year. 
The Charles County Court, for example, 
held fifty-five sessions in a nine year period 
from 1666 to 1675.^^ The clerks issued pro- 
cess, the sheriffs delivered it and ensured 
the appearai«»!*iswMt qf ■ ^iift ' c to nte <md 
witnesses. The sheriff was warned only 
three times for failing to produce parties 
whose bail he had accepted, and all even- 
tually appeared. No proceedings were 
stopped because *ritrieai«5 Mksd-tt) af»j»ear 
on subpoena. Grand juries were regularly 
convened and made presentments for crim- 
inal offenses. The procedures necessary f0r 
orderly conduct of a court.of iu»ti<%.%ei« in 
place and working. 

The administrative duties of the court 
also functioned as needed. Of course, the 
very nature of a system that depended on 
untrained and unpaid service put little em- 
phasis on efficiency. Highway overseers 
were not necessarily good road engineers or 
illiterate constables very accurate in listing 
•ttenftiet^NeveftiiefesBi roads were 
and a bridge built over Zachia Swamp to 
improve communication with adjacent St. 
Mary's County. Tax lists were made and 
taxes were collected. Guardians were ap- 
ffotot ed "for • ei^|»h«Bi and-tfcc tMf a«i isick 
received assistance. Servants' ages were 
judged and their complaints were heard. 
And a contract was let for building a court- 
house and a jail. These were the percei^wd 
nwe^'ofthettoes, mid theywerrmet.* 

The question remains, did county rulers 
abuse their power? There are isolated ex- 
amples of men who evidently inspired fear 
and who remained in office, despite noto- 
rious acts. In 1659 a jury refused to conii^tft 
Simon Overzee, a wealthy merchant and 
justice of St. Mary's County court, for mur- 
der in the death of his recalcitrant slave 
Antonio. Racism may have affected this 
verdict.^' In 1661 on far away Kent Island, 
Sarah Taylor won her freedom from Justice 
Thomas Broadnox because of his mistreat- 
ment. That siai^ f«ecrSfrmiKmx was ac- 
cused of beating a servant to death but died 
before the case came to trial. His wife, also 
aeeuied, prodiKsed witneesee to show tkat 



Political Stability and Upheetved 



51 



the poor creature had died of disease, not 
the punishments he had suffered when he 
could not work. Mrs Broadnox was acquit- 
ted.^^ Neither man committed these acts in 
the course of exercising his powers as a 
magistrate, but his position may have influ- 
enced the juries' verdicts. On a later fron- 
tier in Cecil County, the court acted out- 
rageously in ordering an eleven-year-old 
girl, a Protestant orphan, seized from her 
Catholic aunt and then allowing a fortune 
hunter to marry her.^^ Only in this county, 
farthest •HkSlHIM of any from the central 
government, do we find any real signs of 
unbridled exercise of magistratical power 
and conflicts over who should exercise it. 

On the whole the justices, despite their 
i&tbBHf '^hufflfMe origins, 
sense of responsibility. Since they received 
no fees, they did not have much direct 
opportunity in any case to exploit the peo- 
ple they served. True, a justice could see to 
ft'TiHTi (jOTvwiHstir'reiaus sbtv(!UtRs piarita- 
tions. He could make himself guardian to a 
rich orphan whose estate he could then 
use until the orphan was of age. He could 
ensure that his business at court was sched- 
uled to suit his convenience, and his serv- 
ants might fear to complain against him. 
On the other hand, caring for an orphan's 
estate entailed trouble and risk. It is doubt- 
ful, furthermore, that a justice's position, 
rather than the facts, often determined the 
^ outcome of litigation, and, after all, 
. Thomas Broadnox's servant did persuade 
Isl* HSi l rag t ni ■«» the court that her com- 
plaint was justified. There were undoubt- 
edly advantages that the position of justice 
conferred when it came to doing business, 
but the justices could not use their power 
directly. Outright opporturiitfta fbfMfflstfi* 
■ of the position for gain were missing.^* 

The sheriff had much greater opportun- 
ities to misuse power and exploit his posi- 
j tion. He could exact illegal fees; he could 
: «efr"«itWfe^5HS#*? bail; he could grant 44- 
' refuse credit to men who owed taxes or fees 
' to public officers; he could delay payments 
to public creditors, delays that could be 
critical to them. He had the major police 
I power of the county in his hands with the 
* power to raise a posse, and he could be 
; gentle or brutal in its exercise. Complaints 
I segmM the seve^ti&tnfck-cetitwy ^ctriMs 



suggest that some of them felt invulner- 
able. In 1681, for example, Edward Inglish 
of Cecil County stated that, "since his 
Lordshipp had given him Comand of the 
County, the people must and should love 
and fear him," and he threatened to damage 
the -crops of those who petitioned against 
him.*** 

To keep the sheriff under control without 
reducing his effectiveness, the county jus- 
tices and the assemblies attempted to limit 
his term and control his appointment. A 
law allowing the justices to nominate the 
sheriff was in effect during the 1660s but 
the proprietor then disallowed it as an in- 
fringement of his charter rights. During the 
1670s and early 1680s, sheriffs often served 
*«• several yeai4!»«Md*IS'Wef #48^«l«i 
that the chief complaints appear. From 
1678 through most of 1686 a law required 
that no sheriff could be reappointed with- 
out the approval of the county justices, 
«Hil*n!^«f*«rftrst royal assembly estab- 
lished a two — later three — year limitation. 
On the whole, these measures kept sheriffs 
in check. Furthermore, sheriffs usually had 
been and would again be justices md felt a 
'COTimunity of itttetest-Wfth' the otfirr 
county rulers. By the 1690s in Maryland, 
the royal governor, Francis Nicholson, was 
far more concerned about the efficiency of 
the sheriffs as servers of process and collec- 
tors of fees and taxes than about extortions 
or abuse of power.^'' 

In Maryland a critical test of the ability 
of the county courts to maintain order oc- 
curred during the Revolution of 1689 and 
the three years of provisional government 
that followed before the first royal governor 
arrived. Only in Cecil County, again, did 

sagreemeirt aftfOrif tiie magistratsss (Jfe- 
rupt normal proceedings. Elsewhere the lo- 
cal justices and sheriffs provided normal 
county services and awaited the crown's 
dec^d^ ae to who should rule the previse. 
Tbe'^fim f!*9tf^ Of ttH -tms- to Maintain 
order and avoid bloodshed and destruction 
of property. The strength of county govern- 
ment as an institution was basically re- 
sponsible. The justices w^e still usually 
immigrants, and soinS t*^ere men of humble 
origins who had achieved success. Turnover 
was still high on the benches; mean length 
«l emrmt in 1©^ w«8 o^ly seven ym&TB. But 



I 



52 



MaSYLA^NJD UlSTOSlCikL Magapne 



all knew the meaning of magistracy and put 
the charge of their commission to provide 
justice ahead of disagreements over the 
political changes to come from the "revolu- 
tion of government." Such institutional 
strength could develop because the inhab- 
itants of Maryland wanted the safety of 
order and cooperated with 
obtain it.^^ 

Of course, seventeenth-century Mary- 
land was not a utopia. Servants and slaves 
sometimes died of abuse, and they some- 
times murdered their masters. Guardians 
beat or starved their wards; mothers mur- 
dered their bastard infants; men got drunk 
and maimed each other.^* Violence of this 
kind occurred on occasion everywhere in 
%Weiiteefrth'K!€ntui^*-flnfiand and Amer- 
ica. But was it more common in the Ches- 
apeake than in England or in colonies 
where demographic disruption was less se- 
vere? 

A» of the motaeatt, ■«s^§tmM^*&mi^m»- 
sons of reported offenses per unit of popu- 
lation at risk to commit a crime have not 
been done. ''"' I suspect that if we speak 
primarily of prepiaritaLsffix, drunkenness, 
«HSd oth#r di*orderiy conduct, a higher level 
of disorder was tolerated in the Chesapeake 
than in most parts of New England or the 
mother coufxli^ M®t]^osecutions for bridal 
pregnancy ever occurred in Maryland. 
Drunkenness and fighting or drunkenness 
and contempt of court usually were prose- 
cuted together. There were not many pros- 
ecutions for drunkenness alone, which sug- 
gests high tolerance of such behavior if no 
additional breach of the peace occurred.'"' 
Furthermore, indictments for fighting usu- 
ally concerned events that occurred in the 
'fiim'&f-mei^ftietibt^ m-i^willasd- - wi ' - a erw iu B 
injury, a fact that arouses suspicions that 
many more fights occurred than reached 
official ears.'" Finally, the shortage of 
women probably encouraged fornication, 
sine© manywomeft wfere Bimnt t s trftfftjie^ 
marry before completing their terms. 

The system of bound labor, furthermore, 
may have contributed to a greater amount 
of physi(»l abuse than elsewhere. WhaiaB, a 
Than liKhight -an jwdewturfed seiva*rt or a 
slave, he had an investment to recoup. If 
the servant were lazy, or ill, or stupid, much 
of the investeiMrt could be lost. Men coiid 



sympathize with the anger and frustration 
ol a neighbor whose servant did not work. 
And they could share the sense of aliena- 
tion that Englishmen felt when they could 
not cope successfully with an African slave. 
There was probably greater tolerance for 
beating servants and slaves than for mis- 
treating other people in the community. 
Even when the death of a slave resulted, 
his abuser might be excused. 

Nevertheless, serious crimes of violence 
or destruction or theft of property were not 
ignored, and the mechanisms for dealing 
with them were securely in place. Even if 
seventeenth-century Chesapeake stan- 
dards of what was disorder differed some- 
what from ours, or even from those of con- 
temporary England and d^ifer -eiolonies, 
there were standards and they were en- 
forced, both informally in neighborhood 
support systems and through the institu- 
tions of government. The settled, free white 
y^etetio* * " W an i e# > pwi t »t i tl Qii' ' ist pMson 
and property and supported institutions 
that provided it. 

^ However Maryland's stability cannot be 
tested alone by the success <sf tommunity 
networks and local governments in meeting 
the needs of everyday life. Other kinds of 
tests came with the political upheavals and 
sudden changes in the central government 
that occurred between 1645-1647, 1652- 
1658, and 1689-1692. We should now ex- 
amine these three periods to see how local 
institutions met the challenges to order and 
when and why provincial government failed 
the inhabitants under crisis conditions. 

Before 1661, there were several elements 
that contributed to political disruption in 
Maryland. The Civil War and- its aftermath 
in England were underlying events that had 
repercussions everywhere in England's 
growing empire. From 1642 to 1649, this 
war wracked England and ended in rule by 

I, abolished the House of Lords, established 
a Commonwealth, and forbade the practice 
of Anglican as well as Catholic rites. But 
Eftrlmmeiit could jjot bring, unity to Eng- 
lattdrfei IfJSg, @H**r-CroiMwells*i5ted power 
and established a Protectorate that col- 
lapsed at his death in 1658. In 1660 Eng- 
Utrkaaen invited beck ^ son of the ese- 



Political Stability and Upheaval 



53 



cuted monarch and restored Charles II to 
his throne. 

In Maryland these events added to other 
conflicts that led to political disruption. 
Most important was the determined oppo- 
sition of Virginia leaders to what they saw 
as an illegal and unjust grant to the Cal- 
verts of territory that was rightfully theirs. 
To this external threat were added internal 
stresses: tensions between Catholics and 
Protestants in Maryland that separation of 



church and state could not dispel and fail- 
ures in the Maryland leadership. All these 
elements came to a head at the end of 
Maryland's first decade in the episode 
called Ingle's Rebellion and did not subside 
until after the Restoration of Charles 11."^ 
From the beginning, Virginia interests 
did their best to block the grant of Mary- 
land to Lord Baltimore. The northern 
Chesapeake had originally been part of the 
Virginia Company grant of 1606, but the 




King Charles I (1600-1649), King of England, Scotland, and Ireland 
(1625-1649). Engraving by Robert Strange after Antonius, 1782. 
(Printed by permission of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian 
Institution.) The beheading of this patron of the Calverts in 1649 
precipitated a crisis in Maryland. 



54 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



dissolution of the company in 1624 had left 
the status of the area ambiguous. Virginia 
leaders gained enough support to eliminate 
from the Maryland grant the already set- 
tled portion of the lower Eastern Shore; but 
they did not succeed in excluding Kent 
Island, where William Claiborne, a member 
of the Virginia council, had established an 
outpost in 1631. Conflict with Claiborne 
over control of Kent resulted in armed en- 
counters in 1635, and Lord Baltimore did 
not establish his authority there until 1638. 
Even then his victory was uneasy and the 
loyalty of men on Kent Island remained in 
question for another twenty years. 

By continuous politicking in England, 
Lord Baltimore retained his rights to his 
grant. But when warfare broke out between 
Charles I and the Long Parliament in 1642, 
the proprietor's position weakened. Years 
of carefully cultivating his connections at 
court rapidly lost value. The possible vic- 
tory of the Parliamentary party, dominated 
by Protestant dissenters from the Church 
of England, raised spectres of more severe 
persecution of English Catholics and the 
recall of the Maryland charter. 

Enter then Richard Ingle, a ship captain 
who had been trading to Maryland since at 
least 1639. He made no bones about his 
allegiance to Parliament, whereas the 
Maryland Catholics, like all English Cath- 
olics, supported the king. Early in 1644, 
Giles Brent, acting governor of Maryland 
while Leonard Calvert was absent in Eng- 
land, arrested Ingle briefly for treason to 
the king. A year later, after the battle of 
Marston Moor had subjected Charles I to a 
major defeat. Ingle returned to the Chesa- 
peake armed with letters of marque issued 
in the name of Parliament. With this ex- 
cuse, and probably with tacit support from 
Virginia leaders, he attacked and looted the 
St. Mary's County settlements and took 
two Catholic priests and other Catholic 
leaders as prisoners back to England. Leon- 
ard Calvert escaped to Virginia. He did not 
return to reestablish Lord Baltimore's au- 
thority until late in 1646. 

Ingle evidently had the support of many 
Maryland Protestants. In Maryland it had 
been policy that Catholics and Protestants 
could not criticize each other or interfere 
with one another's religious practices; but 
such toleration had not led to much ac- 





THE CHARTER 

O F 

H A R L E 5 By the 

Grace of GOD, KiDg of 
Enthni, Scotland, Frtnce, 
and IrcUnd, Defender 
of the Faith, &c. To all 
to whom thefe Prcfcnts 
fiiallcoTie greeting. 
WHEREAS Our right Trofty and 
Wellbclovcd Subjed Cecilm Culvert, hirrni 
a^Btlttmtre in our Kingdom of IrtUni, Sonne 
aiKl htircof Sit Cmte Ctbert Knight,latc B*- 
A 2 

Title page of the printed version of The Charter of 
Maryland distributed in the promotional book by John 
Lewger and Jerome Hawley, A Relation of Maryland; 
together with a Map of the Countrey, the Conditions of 
Plantation, with His Majesties Charter to the Lord 
Baltemore, translated into English (London, 1635). 
The strongly-worded charter that granted extensive 
powers to Lord Baltimore proved a mixed blessing in 
an age of religious and political factionalism, but in 
the end, various English governments always re- 
spected the property rights that the charter bestowed 
on the Calverts. (Photograph courtesy of the Maryland 
Historical Society.) 



ceptance of religious differences. Further- 
more, in a population of perhaps four to 
five hundred people (exclusive of Kent Is- 
land), the handful of leaders and owners of 
large land grants were mostly Catholic, 
since the Calverts had had little success in 
gaining major Protestant investors, while 
the majority of the settlers — servants, for- 
mer servants becoming plaiiters, and a 



Poiitkttl iStofetliy ami Uplweval 



55 



sprinkling of free immigrants — were Prot- 
estants."'' It is not certain that the settle- 
ment, unprepared for attack and with its 
fort decayed, had any possibility of resist- 
ance against the well-armed Ingle unless 
its leaders had been willing to accept severe 
risks to life as well as property. But the 
iboperation of many Protestant colonists 
iftade his victory certain and quick. 

Was there a major failure of leadership 
in the Calvert settlement that led to this 
catastrpphe? Perhaps. The failure, if any, 
wm il^NM to the leaders' humble origins; 
over the first ten years Maryland leaders 
were men of birth and education. The prob- 
lem was more that they did not work to- 
gether. Many put their private interests 
ahead ofiJte -^tferi^ of €Me colony. They 
did not feel the identity of interest with 
Lord Baltimore's enterprise that long as- 
sociation with Maryland and long-term 
economic and political investment might 
one day produce. The records show ample 
evidence of quarrels among the leaders over 
trade, over appointments, over who should 
do what, and of friction between then^>illil 
Lord Baltimore. Turnover, furthermore, 
was high. By the end of 1638 only four of 
the seventeen gentlemen who had mounted 
and led the first expedition were still in 
Maryland; the ot*fe*« 'il»d«di*^«i9r returmeA 
to England.*' New leaders, such as Giles 
Brent, had replaced these first pioneers, but 
any esprit de corps that participation in the 
first venture had created was gone. So lo^ 
as Bseo**r* Calvert NlaB'oB iii*M, fe^^l^ 
some control over disagreements, but his 
year-and-a-half absence in England 
shortly before the rebellion sent matters 
from bad to mmm. la. emy cm*, he cleaxly 

duced friction and retained Protestant loy- 
alties in a time of crisis. 

On the other hand, the first ten years of 
Maryland settlement had seen considerable 
success. In 1644, immigrants, servant and 
free, were continuing to arrive, former serv- 
ants were becoming planters, planters were 
growing and marketing tobacco, commo^ 
nity networks were forming, courts and as- 
semblies were functioning. Quarreling lead- 
ers did work out compromises. From this 
point of view there is no reason to suppose 
i^MMte colony s^-Sk^'s arrival was close 
to <^Uap8e i&lthcm^ m ^u«teM Menaird in 



this issue points out, major social and eco- 
nomic changes were coming in response to 
pressure from the growing number of ex- 
servants to acquire land). By this interpre- 
tation. Ingle's Rebellion was an offshoot of 
the English Civil War that happened to 
wreak havoc in a small settlement where 
religious tensions were inevitably severe."^ 
What happened in Maryland from the 
time of Ingle's departure until Leonard Cal- 
vert's return is something of a mystery. No 
records for the period remain. Later the 
inhabitants referred t& ihtr^f^ShcM-trm- 
bles" and "the plundering time." Evidently 
there was a certain amount of livestock 
stolen and killed, and various goods were 
pillaged from Catholic households. On the 
other-%afttf mrtsp^ or^MWMfdefS 
ported, and Maryland was not laid waste. 
Over the months the inhabitants must have 
established some kind of order among 
themselves. The provincial secretary, John 
Lewger, captured by Ingle, found it saie tO 
return early in 1646, yet some of the Prot- 
estant ringleaders were still in Maryland 
and remained vnatil Le^ard Calvert re- 
turned.'*^ 

What is certainly true, and what made 
the rebellion a disaster from which the col- 
ony might not have recovered, is that most 
&p^e Protestant popraiStWflf^ Miay l wii d 
departed. In 1645 there were probably four 
hundred or more settlers in St. Mary's 
County. Once Leonard Calvert had restored 
his authority, there may have been fewer 
p«*pte'*e*t*^Mfi^'lMn-fcd*aCTtvw* €n the 
Ark and the Dove. Most moved across the 
Potomac River to Virginia to become the 
earliest settlers in the Northern Neck. 
They did not perceive Maryland at that 
ffltntteBrtr as-Wif orderly place where their 
hard work might gain them property and 
community recognition. Luckily for Lord 
Baltimore, a boom in the tobacco industry 
of the late 1640s and early 1650s brought 
replacements, and Maryland began to grow 
once more."* 

The moral, then, of Ingle's Rebellion lies 
ito»i*he evidence it supplies of the val-ue 
people put on order. When they found it 
not forthcoming or feared that it would 
further disappear, those who could affeard 
to simply left. 

iuMter Ingle'««R«i)cft^ ii^Mi BiMmlr^ 
i«dvwli3e^ed his straitegy. In England, Lon- 



56 



Marylan© Hiotokigal Magazine 



don tobacco merchants associated vnth the 
Calverts' enemies in Virginia had peti- 
tioned Parliament to rescind the Maryland 
charter. Lord Baltimore needed to disso- 
ciate himself from his former royalist- 
Catholic connections and make friends in 
the Protestant merchant community. Fol- 
KJwing the death of Leonard Calvert early 
in 1647, the proprietor seized the opportu- 
nity to appoint a Protestant governor, Wil- 
liam Stone of Accomack-Northampton, 
Virginia. Not only was Stone a Protestant, 
histh*ler'Wl5iifate ^tone, was a prominent 
London tobacco merchant."*^ The proprie- 
tor also sought more Protestant settlers, 
especially Protestants of substance. With 
Stone's assistance, he induced a Pitfitaii 
ciSttftnunity suffering persecution fti"'^- 
ginia to move to Maryland, where they took 
up land in what today are Anne Arundel 
and Calvert counties. With these changes 
he also created more explicit guarantees for 
Catholics than had before seemed neces- 
sary. He drafted and sent to Maryland the 
famous Act Concerning Religion. Stone's 
^st^wMyb^," ^0¥M i%|>resentatives " itetR 
the Puritan settlement, passed the act, but 
with changes that confined its benefits to 
trinitarian Christians. Sad to say, these 
Puritans were no different froto their 

towards those who did not share their be- 
liefs. They agreed to the act, but future 
events would show that they did not wish 
to extend its toleration to Catholics. 
' -njrttbitmmttitt ifer L"6td-Birltlfci6r(<, 
triumph of Parliament in England greatly 
strengthened the hands of Virginians who 
hoped to force him out of Maryland. In 
1650 Parliament appointeci comrnkfi^iitias 
to ^iStablfSr thr kitWwfty of "ttie new^Mn^ 
monwealth in Virginia, where Gov4ww* 
William Berkeley had supported the roy- 
alist cause. The c o'inmii i b ioners included 
Lord Baltimore's enemy, William Clai- 
borne, and also Richard Bennett, a chief 
leader of the Puritan migration to Mary- 
land and the new governor of Virginia. Both 
i«wlr%^(i*gWd to the grocrp «f^(^!^ia lead- 
ers who hoped ultimately to bring Mary- 
land under Virginia rule. Lord Baltimore, 
who had already acknowledged the new 
Commonwealth, had managed to have 

However, itowar3i«g, whidt r^fmvd to ^ai 



plantations" in the Chesapeake, allowed 
the commissioners to assert their authority 
in Maryland. 

Early in 1652 Bennett and Claiborne ap- 
peared in Maryland. Stone and his coun- 
cillors — some Catholic and some Protes- 
tant — were ready to acknowledge the Com- 
monwealth but insisted on issuing wfits 
and proceedings in Lord Baltimore's name 
on the grounds that his charter allowed this 
and had not been rescinded. The Commis- 
sioners thereupon removed the pt^piietary 
governor and council and appdiffted a new 
council. However, both sides then reconsi- 
dered. Three months later, in July 1652, 
Bennett and Claiborne reinstated Lord 
Baltimore's officers on the understanding 
that writs would issue in the name of the 
"Keepers of the Liberties of England" until 
word from the English government could 
clarify matters. 

Over the next two years, friction 
mounted. Lord Baltimore insisted that his 
courts still operate in his name, as his 
charter allowed, and that no one be granted 
land without taking an oath of fidelity to 
him. Finally in July 1654, Bennett and 
Claiborne, backed by hostile Protestant 
groups in Maryland, once more removed 
the proprietor's men and appointed an en- 
%lielyf¥ofce#te§*rt'cottncil domfeiated*!5y't*fe 
Puritans. Lord Baltimore ordered Stone to 
restore proprietary authority, by force if 
necessary, but Kent Island and the Puritan 
settlements in Anne Arundel County re- 
ftM#d tb ^riiit. Iff March' =PE®6 9*one at- 
tempted to force the issue. With about 130 
men he sailed to the Severn River and there 
suffered ignominious defeat and heavy cas- 
ualties. Both sides later claimed that the 
other had begun the fighting. The h#w gov- 
•ipiimiiit imprisoned Stone and executed 
three of his associates. 

This government ruled Maryland until 
1657. It was based, not in St. Mary's City, 
but in Providence on the Severn River and 
at Patuxent in Calvert County. The first 
assembly of this regime abrogated the 1649 

voting or holding office. After the first ex- 
cesses of the Battle of the Severn, all pris- 
oners were released, but the Puritans con- 
fiscated considerable property of Stone and 
' i gi tfM i»'iB'« daMiWi<iiBi :-;ifa-'^'--i^>^' ftand, 
•th*i* <wfe ne ftirtihef armed confliet or gen- 



Politiml Stability mul Upheaml 



57 



eral attack on Catholic property ri^ts. mmt never acted. Instead, what we might 

Bennett and the Puritans knew that they call a treaty made in 1657 between Lord 

stood on weak ground were Cromwell to Baltimore and Virginia leaders ended these 

uphold Lord Baltimore's charter. Both years of Maryland-Virginia conflict. This 

sides wished to keep the peace until a set- agreement not only restored Lord Balti- 

tlement came from England. more to full authority in his province but 

Lord Baltimore and his opponents car- stated that he would never permit a change 

ried on the next stages of the conflict in in the religious policies laid down in 1649. 

England. Lord Protector Cromwell's gov- Virginia interests had lost, Puritan rule was 

ernment agreed to hear both sides, but busy over, and Lord Baltimore was in full control 

officials kept postponing a final decision once again. 

while anxieties in Virginia and Maryland Lord Baltimore was ultimately victo- 

mmTt^.' %r the ma^ Crm tf rn S I f* '- g e mum' r i m i ifat l k Qn^ becauae of im p(A^*oeA skills. 



Whereas there hose bin of late viz in the yeare 1652 & since som Controversies 
betweene the Right Honble Caecilius Lord Baltemore Lord & Proprietary of the 
Province of Mary-land & Richard Bennett Esq & other People in Maryland nowe or 
late in opposition to his Lordships Government of the said Province upon wch have 
unhappily followed much bloudshed & greate distempers there endangering the Vtter 
ruine of that Plantation . . . & in the meane time the inhabitants of the said Province 
remaine in a very sad distracted & unsetled condition by reason of the said differences 
toucheing the sd Governmt there Therefore the said Lord Baltemore upon a treaty 
with the sd Richard Bennett & Coll: Samuel Mathews occasioned by the freindly 
endeavours of Edward Diggs Esqr . . . hath for the good of the inhabitants of the said 
Province condescended & is willing to do as followeth, viz 



2. Item that the said People in opposition as aforesaid shall have Patents from his 
Lordship for such land in the said Province as they can claime due unto them by his 
said Lordships conditions of plantacon & in the same manner & with all the same 
rights as they might have had if the said Controversies & differences had not 
hapned . . . 



4. Lastly the Lord Baltemore doth promise that he will never give his assent to the 
refitdk of a lawe established heeretofore in Maryland by his Lordships Con- 
sent ii": h^mreh^ eApm^sons professing to beleeve in Jesm Christ have freedom of 
Cimsci^e there Ori^dbth Faithfully promise upon %iS UonOt O) flfesefee and performe 
as much as in him Lyes the Particulars above mentioned . ... In witnesse whereof the 
said Lord Baltemore hath heereunto sett his hand & seale the 30th day of November 

1657 ■ ... ■ 

Signed and^&ti^ im*tke Pre C^^temore 

sence of 

Edward Diggs Samuell Mathews 
John Harris 
Ricftard Chandler 
A. Sanford 
William Barrett 

—Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1657-1660, Liber HH, ff 
10-12, MdHR 3823. 



58 



Maryland Hwtorical Maga^ne 



but because of English devotion to property 
rights. He had a charter — a charter George 
Calvert had written and Charles I had 
granted — and the English government 
needed a strong rationale for rescinding 
such a grant. The Calverts had invested 
most of their fortune in Maryland settle- 
•iiient, and no one could prove serious mis- 
government there. Grand issues of imperial 
policy would have been needed to justify 
abrogating the charter. Over the years of 
Ma^ la nd^ix ^nm ^ ^on flic t^ ^t he ^^^^Us h 

tions at home to develop any overall impe- 
rial organization. Neither the crown, nor 
Parliament, nor the Protectorate govern- 
laents could find arguments or energy to 
undo what Charles I had done. 

External events clearly had a major im- 
pact on political events in Maryland over 
this period. Conflicts over who should ex- 
ercise power did not originate within the 
colony, although the introduction of a large 
Puritan population from Virginia made it 
easy for the Parliamentary commissioners 
to establish an alternative government. 
There were, furthermore, no signs of unu- 
sual internal stress. Population increased, 
tobacco was shipped, everyday life func- 
tioned as it always had.®° In the years be- 
tween 1654 and 1658, Catholics were ex- 
cluded from office, but their property rights 
were not attacked. On the other hand, the 
first bloodshed over who should rule had 
occurred since an encounter with Clai- 
borne'« men two decades before m 1^5. 
Could the Battle of the Severn have been 
prevented? 

Clearly the answer is yes. In part the 
fault must be laid at Lord Baltimore's own 
door. At« fi«tance of thtree t^tofCKsai^ 9tM9s, 
he did not comprehend the position of 
Stone and his councillors. His reaction to 
the events of 1652-1654 was to insist too 
strongly on maintaining his charter privi- 
leges, and he failed to understand that 
Stone did not have the power to overthrow 
the alternative government once it was cre- 
ated. It would have been wiser to let Mary- 
land remain a divided colony while Lord 
Baltimore lobbied the Cromwell govern- 
ment and everyone waited for its decision. 

However the difficulties of finding relia- 
ble leaders wmet an ismtlcifyi:^ ^mt 



Lord Baltimore's mistakes. He needed most 
of all what he did not have: a family mem- 
ber on hand in Maryland with the ability 
to protect the Calvert interest. With the 
death of his brother Leonard, he had had 
to entrust his colony to men he did not 
know, men who were mostly Protestants, 
and whose loyalty to him he could not easily 
ensure. Protestant men of standing who 
could bring credibility to his government 
had to be invited from outside Maryland; 
no Protestants of such calibre were there 

among the hostile Puritans. He supple- 
mented these appointments with the selec- 
tion of Maryland settlers of humble origins 
but long-term success, whose loyalty he 
could seal with opportunities such promo- 
tion offered. Some of the outsider Protes- 
tants, including Stone, served him well. 
Others never came, while some proved dis- 
reputable or of doubtful loyalty. The most 
humble councillors, John Price and Robert 
Vaughan, were among the successes. But 
over all, the absence of a settled cadre of 
secure leaders at the top was a severe hand- 
icap to a distant ruler. Lord Baltimore's 
early failure to attract Protestants of birth 
and "qualitie" who would commit their lives 
and fortunes to his enterprise left him with- 
out the securely established leadership 
needed for the trials of the 1650s.'^' 

Despite these problems, Maryland grew 
from 1646 to 1660. A population of under 
two hundred people increased, to one of 
n«si4y six thousand. Indfeed, t^s feme, 
which might be considered one of turmoil, 
represents the period in the seventeenth 
century when immigration of people to 
Maryland in family pfupe larggst.®^ 
The institutions in place' cowtimiedtd''pro- 
vide services necessary to make growth pos- 
sible. Courts met, assemblies convened, and 
taxes were collected, despite political 
change-overs in who held the offices. This 
growing population needed and wanted 
peace and prosperity, not disorder. When a 
settlement was finally reached, most inhab- 
itants of Maryland accepted h mUm^eMmf.^ 

Although the next thirty years were a 
time of relatively peaceful development, 
trouble broke out once again in 1689. A 
Protestant-4ed retedJiioa »©**rtkpe*l^' ihe 



t 



P^itkal SMU^ emd Upheaval S9 



Catholic proprietor and successfully peti- 
tioned for crown rule. The Church of Eng- 
land was then established and English laws 
that forbade Catholics to practice their re- 
ligion in public and denied them political 
rights were put in force in Maryland. 
Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore, 
retained his right to Maryland as a prop- 
erty — showing once more the importance 
of property ridits in th* English mental- 
iiyMkrfgArifc ^Igftf^ ^fmem until a 
Protestant should succeed to the title. 
Why this collapse of proprietary authority 
and the policy of toleration it supported? 
What happened over th«sie years that undid 
what had earlier survl^eft'rafTnore troubled 
times? 

The very population growth that spelled 
success for Lord Baltimore's colony helped 
@»ate conditions that contributed to the 
fe^nfall of the proprietor and his policies. 
The nature of the growth itself was part of 
the problem. Until late in the seventeenth 
century, population increased by immigra- 
tion of adults from England, not from nat- 
ural increase in Maryland.^^ This fact had 
major consequences for Maryland society 
over the second half of the seventeenth 

tant and had lived in a society in which 
Catholic services were never held in public 
and Catholics could not hold office. If the 
Maryland adults of the 1670s and 1680s 
had been largely i»th% tW^ahfl 1mi&& 
raised where toleration was practiced, they 
would have set the standard to which new- 
comers were required to adjust. Instead, 
continued heavy immigration after 1660 
ri«t only kept the English born aM ^H^ 
prejudices dominant but greatly increased 
the Protestant majority in the population. 

A serious flaw in the thinking that un- 
derlay the Calvert toleration policy helped 
make the continued influx of English Prot- 
estants a threat. Catholics supported tol- 
eration as a political expedient in a Prot- 
estant country, not as a motal^ffeWl/ISiit 
where Protestants were a great majority, 
they needed to be persuaded that toleration 
in itself was a good if they were going to 
accept it fully. Why else should they sup- 
port it? Unfortunately few peoj:^te Wi 
accepted such ideas. To Protestant and 
Catholics alike, toleration was a device for 



co-existence rather than a moral frame- 
work for a better world. In countries where 
Catholics were a majority, Protestants suf- 
fered disabilities. And in Maryland, when 
the Protestant majority acquired the powgr 
to destroy toleration, they did so?^*" ' 

A second underlying problem also arose 
out of Calvert policy. In the absence of 
taxation to support ministers and churches 
thwe were few of either for Protestants in 
Matyiand. The Jesuit prie«?rii^^^ 
support them, granted to the first mission 
fathers in return for the large number of 
settlers they had brought to Maryland in 
the early years. Quakers did not need min- 
isters. But Catholics' "aM Quakers' VBfe 
probably at best a quarter of the population 
in 1689. Most Protestants most of the time 
were without access to the sacraments. 
This was not an acceptable o^p^^mie in the 
seventeenth-century Engli^'"i(^d, and 
Protestants blamed the proprietor for this 
gap in the social fabric. 

Other problems were less directly related 
to religion. A difficulty for the proprietor 
had always been objections to his princely 
powers. His charter gave him rights that in 
England belonged only to the king or his 
iS^^fMlfflaatimore appointed all mag- 
istrates or other officers needed for his 
government. He could raise an army to put 
down rebellion or make war beyond his 
pr0vi»ce. He could establish courts; writs 
^ttf lii'irt^, KMflisrt'dt ffiffe-ISife md 
no appeal to England was provided. The 
main protections against the tyranny of a 
man with such power lay first in the stip- 
ulation that all English settlers were to be 
considered Englishitferl"#it!K'tfie IrogHy'^ 
and privileges of that status; and second, 
that an assembly of freemen or their de- 
puties was to consent to all laws, which 
were to be "as agreeable as may be" to those 
of England. But no royal review of Mary- 
land laws was mentioned and all disagree- 
ments over the meaning of any wording of 
i»«*«*iarter were to be decided in {iemf%( 
the proprietor. Any proprietor with such 
powers would have had to face opposition, 
but a Catholic was especially vulnerable. 

In these circumstances, it is not surpris- 
ffig thigtt; the issembly was the ^tM* 
which attempts to adjudicate conflicts over 
proprietary policies surfaced. The assembly 



00 



Maryland H*ST<MacAL Magazine 



had very early established its right to ini- 
tiate, as well as consent to, laws. By 1660 
it had become a two-house body, with a 
lower house of elected representatives and 
an upper house appointed by the proprietor. 
The lower house was predominantly Prot- 
estant and many of its members were men 
from humble social origins who had 
achieved success. By contrast, the upper 
house was usually at least half Catholic and 
by 1676 had become a Calvert family net- 
work based on strategic marriages. Mem- 
i»tf» «»f '#lie'<4^^ «^^8flit on the 

council, were judges of the Provincial 
Court, and held all the offices of profit in 
the growing colonial bureaucracy. Conse- 
quently they were a powerful group tied 
closely to the Calvert interest. 

The conflicts that arose in the assembly 
were basically constitutional and fiscal, but 
they were heightened by religious anxiety. 
The proprietor wanted to call only two 
delegates per county to sit and insisted on 
control of procedures for electing and con- 
vening the assembly; the delegates wanted 
four delegates per county and procedures 
based on statute. They finally lost this bat- 
tle. Like other lower houses in the English 
colonies, the Maryland Assembly fought for 
the privileges of Parliament, with some de- 
free of success. But the delegates had only 
a partial victory in another major aim — a 
short time limit on proprietary veto of laws. 
Cecil Calvert had occasionally disallowed 
laws years after they had been passed and 

Lord Baltimore, at first conceded an eight- 
een-month time limit, but when he was 
obliged to leave the colony for England in 
1.684, he insisted on a three-year limjt. At 
his d^plHtwe, the ^mat imxse tAso knk « 
battle to make the assembly, not the pro- 
prietary courts, the judge of what English 
kmit should extend to Maryland. In addi- 
tion, debates occurred over severe punish- 
ments for sedition to the proprietor and the 
absence of a clause in the oath of fidelity 
reserving allegiance to the crown. Concern 
with proprietary power was at the bottom 
of these conflicts, but the fact that the 
proprietor was a Catholic prince added to 
their bitterness. 

Taxes and arrangements for defense 
against Indian incursions raised other dif- 
ficult issues. In 1670 the assembly granted 



the proprietor an export tax of two shillings 
per hogshead of tobacco, provided he spent 
half on defense or other costs of govern- 
ment. But no procedures for accounting 
were part of the act, and as taxes for mili- 
tary expenditures mounted, feeling ran 
high that the proprietor had not kept his 
bargain. Quarrels also arose over control of 
arms and munitions. The proprietor 
wanted a central magazine, the better to 
control loss and spoilage. The lower house 
wanted these supplies sent to the counties, 
where inhabitarttB-^«ii*M ^MMS'«p»j^bw *e- 
cess to them. Here again there were anxious 
undertones. A central magazine would be 
Catholic controlled. 

Another issue, not capable of debate in 
the assembly but clearly of increasinf Ihi- 
portance, was the Calvert policy of plural 
appointments that concentrated power in 
the small group of relatives who composed 
the council.'^® As populatioiijfEiWv.|ier.0^ the 
second half of the seventeetrth asKGtsr, #ie 
pool of men who had achieved wealth and 
appointments as local magistrates in- 
creased, but their opportunities for acquir- 
ing greater power or status were blocked. 
While Lord Baltimore was generally careful 
to ensure that Protestants as well as Catho- 
lics shared the patronage he dispensed, he 
failed to Fiiiit&#Mii k i wan ii tod ^ eeA)^«t- 
ling the men at the top of his government 
had dangerously narrowed the road to 
power. Catholics as well as Protestants 
were subject to such frustrations, but they 
»tw#S)C#i *»est strong- in Pr » t e« t wi < '^yy&- 
tests that appeared as early as 1676 and 
were carefully crafted in 1689 to justify 
rebellion. Lord Baltimore had left himself 
open to charges that justice was hard to 
cfctAte #0*1(1 » feverWftefrt «i"Whi^-ef%ry- 
one was related to everyone else and in 
which the court of final appeal, the upper 
house of assembly, consisted of the same 
men who sat as judges on the Provincial 
Court from which the appeals had come. 

The issue of council membership became 
more serious after Charles Calvert left 
Maryland in 1684 to defend his charter in 
England. By then he had been third Lord 
Baltimore for nine years and was facing 
attacks on his charter both from William 
Penn, who was claiming Maryland territory 
88 part of Pennsylvania, and from the 
crown, which was tightening its control 




The Reconstructed State House of 1676, St. Mary's City 

Reconstructed by Herbert Crist, James Edmunds, Jr., and Horace Peaslee in 1934 as part of Maryland's 
Tercentenary celebration, this exhibit stands only a few dozen yards from the foundations of the original State 
House of 1676. That structure, in the shape of a cross with a width of 61 feet, cost 300,000 pounds of tobacco 
to build and remained standing until 1829. When it was new, St. Mary's City was in its heyday as the village 
seat of provincial government. But on 27 July 1689, John Coode and his armed Protestant rebels invaded St. 
Mary's City and captured the State House from Lord Baltimore's forces without a shot being fired. Within six 
years, the capital was moved to Annapolis, and the ancient seat of government fell into decay, while the State 
House became a chapel of ease for the Anglican parish of William and Mary, symbolizing the joining of church 
and state that the Lords Baltimore had always resisted. (Photograph courtesy of the St. Mary's City Commis- 
sion.) 



over English colonies. Charles Calvert 
made his councillors deputy governors with 
power to act jointly; but over the years 1684 
to 1689, death and departure from Mary- 
land reduced the Protestant membership of 
this group. By 1689 all councillors but one 
were Catholic. In m^iMikm m Ibe ■akimim 



of Lord Baltimore's control, some proved 
to be corrupt, and as a group, they were 
inept. 

The spark that set off rebellion was the 
Glorious Revolution in England, which de- 
posed the Catholic James II in favor of his 
Protestant daughter Mk£^ &CMi her husband 



62 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



William of Orange. In November 1688, 
James II fled to France, and rumors quickly 
surfaced that French and Indian forces 
from Canada were going to invade the Eng- 
lish colonies. In March 1689, rumors in 
Maryland spread that ten thousand enemy 
Indians had actually arrived. The council 
investigated and found nothing, but its 
Catholic character diminished its credibil- 
ity, and suspicions did not disappear. Offi- 
cial word of the accession of William and 
Mary finally reached neighboring Virginia 
late in April, and Their Majesties were 
proclaimed there; but Lord Baltimore's 
messenger with similar news and orders 
died before reaching Maryland. In the ab- 
sence of instructions, the deputy governors 
did not make a similar proclamation. These 
events provided a small group of malcon- 
tents, led by John Coode, with an oppor- 
tunity to organize rebellion. They took ad- 
vantage of the growing unrest to persuade 
the militia of the southern Maryland coun- 
ties, where Catholic population was cen- 
tered, that the Catholic deputy governors 
were conspiring with the French and Indi- 
ans. Late in July 1689, the militia marched 
on the capital and forced the deputy gov- 
ernors to surrender. 

The rebel leaders then followed the prec- 
edent set by the leaders of the English 
revolution and called for an elected conven- 
tion to take control. Catholics, of course, 
were excluded. This convention, which met 
in late August and early September, sent 

estant government. With this went a justi- 
fication of the rising in arms based on the 
supposed conspiracy and backed by a legal- 
istic litany of grievances. These emphasized 
"tiw ' wkWm ic»t@i- febtNtBit churches, Lord 




of the assembly, and charges of misgovern- 
ment that flowed from plural officeholding 
and purported Catholic tyranny. The con- 
vention also appointed Protestant magis- 
trates and militia officers to keep the peace 
in every county, reappointing incumbents 
as much as possible. It then adjourned with- 
out establishing any central government 
beyond itself. 

Over the next nine months, ten county 
courts kept order as if they were ten sepa- 
rate governments, as all anxiously awaited 
word from England. This finally arrived on 
May 30, 1690. The Associators, as they 
called themselves, were to exercise author- 
ity until further orders came from the 
crown. The interim government — consist- 
ing of the elected convention and the 
county courts — ruled Maryland until a 
royal governor arrived in April 1692. 

What is remarkable about this story is 
that there was little disorder or disruption 
of daily life as a consequence of this blood- 
less coup and its aftermath, and this point 
is basic to an assessment of the revolution. 
Catholics were disarmed but they were not 
otherwise harmed, nor was their property 
despoiled. Although many Protestant lead- 
ers opposed the revolution, neither the men 
on the county benches nor those who sat 
on the sidelines as proprietary supports 
sought to make trouble for one another. 
Courts met and carried on the peacekeeping 
services and other governmental responsi- 
bili^^ha^^ey had always had without 
ii^MPHIMMlft^^ of magistratical powers. 
Everyone awaited a decision from the 
crown as to who should rule in Maryland. 

This success of the county magistrates 
provides a strong argument that the under- 
lying causes of rebdHw* wtt iwithar 'm- 
,lMmst_ hMi^iMf^ ff"^ iGAili «#6r nor 



'Wee will take care, and doe promise that no person now in armes with us, or that 
shall come to assist us shall committ any outrage or doe any violence to any person 
whatsoever that shall be found peaceable and quiet and not oppose us in our said just 
and necessary designes, ' ' 

And wee doe invite and require all nwnMi^ of persons wW iMii o fetS* residing or 
Inhabiting in this Province, as they tender^fheir Allegiance, the Pr&testdnt Religion, 
their Lives, fortunes and Families, to ayd and assist us in this our undertaking. " 

— The Declaration of the Protestant Association, 25 July 1689 



Political Stability and Upheaval 



63 



the admitted absence of a secure officehold- 
ing class whose right to govern was based 
on long-established wealth and custom. 
Had either been the basic problem, the 
county governments could not have kept 
the peace during the long months of uncer- 
tainty. This very ability to maintain order 
without loss of life or much repressive use 
of magistratical powers helped give the rev- 
olutionary government its legitimacy, in 
England as well as in Maryland. If county 
governments had not been stable and well- 
functionilKf ' -^IWttfcitiWiS, this outcome 
would not have been possible. There were 
Protestant leaders in every county who 
supported Lord Baltimore, or at least felt 
that nothing could juftify rising in arm« 
^S^fim. a legally-constfea^ aerthOTity. Bat 
local leaders, whether pro- or anti-propri- 
etor, whether sitting on the bench or on the 
side lines, refrained from engaging in local 
powfl^ «t^sii^les that could have led to vio- 
hSfiel* m^^fmMmSi?* Vmme i -they pro- 
moted the safe routin* "Vkkt would mini- 
mize tension and keep the peace while they 
waited for the crown's decision. 

Recently scholars have suggested that 
the large numbers of unmarried and prop- 
ertyless freed servants in Maryland and 
Virginia were a disruptive element that 
hmne^it about disorderly episodes such as 
the coup of 1689. Nothing in the Maryland 
records suggest that such men were a large 
element in the Maryland revolution. In- 
deed, one proprietary leader spoke of his 

they were risking their estates. If a disor- 
derly rabble had been the basis of Coode's 
army, these same men surely would have 
remained restless aiid made trouble during 
^i^Wt^tehtHM tfeMrtrpreceded crown ap- 
proval of the change in government. Yet 
nothing in the county records or in ac- 
counts of the revolution sent to Wmi^mtM. 
V^gests disorders of jbhis kind. 

This, same abs^de of (Hsor^r suggests 
that the origins of the uprising did not 
lie in an irrepressible upwelling either of 
anti-popery or fear of Calvert tyranny, de- 
spite the many anxieties and conflicts mmc 
religious and constitutional issues that had 
characterized the preceding years. Such 
feelings and fears would surely have 
bro«^'»tt»cks @n Cnthoiies a»d di«iefSeffy 



coiiiiiet between pro- and anti-proprietary 
Protestants that would have surfaced in 
surviving county records or in accounts of 
the revolution sent to England. Further- 
more, the proportion of Protestants who 
refused to support the revolution was sub- 
stantial. Thirty percent of the Protestants 
who were holding office when the revolu- 
tion broke out were either excluded from, 
or refused to serve in the interim govern- 
ment. In every county there were Protes- 
tant leaders in open opposition, and in at 
least three counties, addresses to the crown 
denounced the revolution. But these disa- 
greements were contained within orderly 
procedures that surely would have col- 
lapsed into serious violence had overpower- 
ing fieser'trtSd" anger motivated any signifi- 
cant portion of the Protestant population. 

This division in Protestant reaction also 
indicates that constitutional conflicts over 
the powers of the assembly mostly fought 
before BordBlifchwofe's departure trad not 
been overpowering sources of discontent. 
The majority of Protestants still alive in 
1689 who had served in the ass ewMfe l s 
through 1684 failed to mipport tht-^mtm 
throw of Lord Baltimore. 0#f the last 
assembly, held in 1688 after four years of 
inept rule by the deputy governors, had a 
majority of members wlifl(rbe©iti»e*Associa- 
tors. What had been emerging until Lord 
Baltimore was called away was a learning 
process between the delegates and the pro- 
prietor as they sought to adjudicate differ- 

remain, the process could have continued. 
Later delegates might have also felt com- 
mitment to the process and helped make a 
revolution impOM^Ue. 

"Hie revoiataon'.' thAi,- Was not an inevi- 
table result of religious anxieties, although 
these anxieties were real, nor were political 
problems necessarily insoluble. The social 
and political ingredients for continyed 
CathoHb-^ttJite^ttot ' co<^tation were 
present in Maryland society. Had the third 
Lord Baltimore been able to stay in his 
province, hrv^ Hkely woald have berai 
l^ie to~J(«^4;ontrol. 

MeverSietess, changes were inevitable. 
Had there been no revolution. Lord Balti- 
more would have had to make them, or the 
tt&mti eventaeWy would have interr^Bed. 



64 



Maryland Hisw^icAt Magazine 



The Associators who eventually achieved 
power under the royal governors did so 
through their contacts im English gov- 
ernment and merchant community. Had 
there been no revolution, they could have, 
and if necessary surely would have, made 
use of this influence to bring about essential 
changes. Charles Calvert would have bean 
forced to give Protestants more access to 
power, both through expansion of the rule 
of the assembly and through appointment 
to high office. He would have had to accept 

have had to allow taxation in some form to 
support Protestant churches, and complete 
separation of church and state would hve 
come to an end. Abandoning that experi- 
flSfenfwotlld hawheen the price of contin- 
uing toleration. And if he had refused to 
make such changes, he would probably have 
lost his charter in the end. 
At bottom, the Maryland revolution of 
w*s once again a consequence of fail- 
ure in leadership of the men at the top of 
Maryland society. In 1689 these were men 
<w4ii« most closely fit the traditional criteria 
for rulers. The deputy governors were all 
men of good birth, supposedly bound to the 
lord proprietor by ties of kinship as well as 
the wealth and power he had entrusted to 
t|j*«K-¥et when puW;0-tife-test, tiiey failed 
to perform. They misused their positions 
to build their fortunes. They showed poor 
judgment in dealing with political opposi- 
tion. They were not dedicated to Lord Bal- 

the failings of the third Lord Btttl^ore 
himself. He had not seen in time the neces- 
sity of somehow providing support for Prot- 
estant churches. He had been too mwilliag 
to grant high office -to' ProtestAnts of-fflHl- 
ity, preferring by plural officeholding to 
keep the reins of power in the hands of a 
tk^-4»Miority. He had been too tenacious 
of prerogatives he could have afforded to 
release, such as his refusal to include in the 
oath of fidelity a clause reserving allegiance 
to the crown. Such policies lost him support 
that could have made the revolutionary 
coup unable to succeed. At the beginning, 
most Maryland Protestant leaders simply 
allowed the coup to happen without ac- 
tively participating. If more such men had 
irastoiHi actively disaj^FoveS^ oveitumiag 



proprietary authority, Coode and his col- 
leagues could not have carried out their 
plan and'f»(MI^«'«^Mld'!Mi«-»«¥en bsp<% 
tried it. 

As it was. Catholics lost political rights, 
and the Anglican Church was established. 
But otherwise the substitution of a royal 
for a proprietary governor brought little 
change beyond access to high office for a 
broader range of Protestants. By 1694 all 
the political divisions that the revolution 
created had disappeared, and Protestant 
4««^ie¥af stM iM-^'v^^mi 'sappOT^ the 
proprietor had been returned to power. Nor 
did royal government produce changes in- 
the structure of government beyond allow- 
ing very limited app,eals frpgi Maryland 
courts to-fhe twwn -and a *&yai' review? of 
Maryland legislation. The creation of ves- 
tries accompanied the Anglican establish- 
ment, but their functions remained primar- 
ily parochial and did not compete with, or 
replace, those of flie county courts. Mary- 
land already had a constitution that was 
suitable to its needs and there was no pres- 
sure in either England or Maryland for 
further change. Had the third Lord Balti- 
more made the necessary religious and po- 
litical adjustments during the 1680s, it is 
doubtful that there would have been a rev- 

There was both continuity and progres- 
sion to the episodes that threatened pro- 
prietary rule in seventeenth-century Mary- 
laM.'^e^ious tension contributed to all of 
them. There were failures of leadership at 
the top in all, and both in the 1650s and in 
the 1680s the proprietor made mistakes 
that led to unmcmms^ emflhct. Further- 
more, tfett-^ were alway^s lifetryland ieiiders 
who thought more of their own fortunes 
and careers than of the public interest. 
Oppwiiiilities at the top for making a kill- 
ing apparently couldprovide overwhelming 
temptation to put" self first and loyalty to 
the proprietor — especially in his absence — 
or to the public interest, second. But at the 
■Mtais and hi tlte raid^ e# tha<t- tdeivt^, 
among freedmen striving to become plant- 
ers and planters striving to secure estates 
they could leave to their children, public 
order was necessary to success. Such men 
invested tkae and energy in sup^rti^g the 



Political Stability and Upheaval 



65 



institutions that would create such order. 
As the seventeenth century progressed, this 
order became more and more secure. In 
1645 men left Maryland when order broke 
down. By 1689 its foundations were well 
established in functioning county govern- 
ments run by conscientious magistrates 
who protected life and property even as 
they supported or opposed the overturn of 
the proprietor's government. This was a 
major achievement of sev«Ste€nth-mitury 

Mmland society. , ^, , 

'T«f«(Stes t© o*wer camfe trem wie top? btit 
even here the legal legitimacy of govern- 
ment was always established as the issue 
when transfers of power were attempted. 
Unfortunately^ of legitimacy 
always embeASed -iff W^gious differentes 
that greatly heightened tension and helped 
justify a challenge of established authority. 
In the 1630s the Virginia leaders could not 
af$ept the idea that the crown would really 
atidiorize Catholic ownership and gover- 
nance of territory they felt was rightfully 
theirs through earlier grants and prior oc- 
■aiii0m^at 1645 Ingle justified his raid 
not only as an attack upon supporters of 
the crown but as a rescue of Protestants 
from papist rule. In the 1650s Virginians 
and the Puritan immijgrants from yirginia 
lammed legitiiMK^^ pftpfe -B i a i^ y %*l^mg 
Protestant. In 1689 this position required 
bolstering with accusations of popish plots. 
The Calvert government by then had been 
too long in place to attack simply, as a 
Catholic-led entity. But 1^ fl^Mrtktms 
produced the desired result. The Catholic 
government of Maryland could not be le- 
gitimate if it sui^orted a French and |K^«m 
iaviieieii,. 

- f ie Wt?m ,-teieat»Be-of the very need felt 

by all to claim legitimacy, Lord Baltimore 
always won in the end. He had a charter, 
and the place of property rights in the 
English mentality protected his position. 
Even in 1689 he did not lose his right to 
Maryland as a property and eventually the 
Calverts regained nearly all their original 
powers. It took a real revolution — iliA (»ae 
in 1776 — to bring an ®nd to Calvert -i&wn- 
i!¥Ship of Maryland. • 

So far this essay has argued that despite 
severe and long-continued ifrinofri|>hic 



disruption, Maryland inhabitants devel- 
oped the informal and formal social and 
political institutions required for an orderly 
society, and that these were strong enough 
by 1689 to prevent bloodshed and destruc- 
tion of property, even when rebels over- 
turned a legally established government. 
How then can we account for Bacon's Re- 
bellion of 1676 in Virginia? The stories of 
looting and burning there, and the encour- 
agement to destruction given by leaders at 
the top — some of them menjbers of the 
^uncil — have no pari^fel' «• -Maryland 
after 1645, if then.'^^ Was Virginia society 
more disorderly? Was there less opportu- 
nity for the poor, less integration of former 
««vants into community networks? Was 
■Wftm less participation of inhabitants in 
Virginia's local government? Was life more 
brutal, were leaders more self-serving than 
in Maryland? 

. This essay can only raise these queslliom, 
hot answer them, but some comments *re 
in order. Some very recent, and, as of this 
writing, unpublished work argues that Vir- 
ginia society and government were not un- 
stable. Social underpinnings developed 
quickly in the form of community networks 
and local governments based on wide par- 
ticipation of inhabitants. At the top, men 
"wi^ ^^^B«Hg-' iiffewreSte' ■ qwtaweied ■feiat 
learned to handle conflicts and work to- 
gether. Transfers of power were orderly. By 
this interpretation, Bacon's Rebellion was 
an aberration that obscured important 
lfeHf»nhi -devdopAfignts' ' ifi Virgtitkr soci- 
ety.^» 

But supposing Virginia did generally re- 
semble Maryland in its social development, 
there QM@r have been otjjer differences that 
contrib(lt*d to' diffl6rt«ces hi lite "belrafvior 
of Virginia leaders as opposed to those in 
Maryland. First Virginia was much larger 
than Maryland, and county courts had 
much more independence. For example, 
they made land grants and controlled pro- 
bate of estates, both important powers over 
distribution of property that in Maryland 
*&miM- be kept under^rMti^ matml govern- 
ment control.^^ There was thus more op- 
portunity in Virginia for misuse of power. 
Second, the very religious tensions that 
brought trouble to Maryland may have also 
contributed to C0n>scienticlia« mi^stmcy 



66 



Maryland HMT®mcAL Magazine 



there. Men in positions of authority, both 
in the counties and at the top, had to be 
circumspect. A Catholic propriety* 
Catholic governor controlled appointments 
of Protestants to power, while Catholic of- 
ficials were under the scrutiny of a predom- 
inantly Protestant population with con- 
tacts in the English government. Nrither 
Catholics nor Protestants could afford to 
be notorious for vicious conduct or outra- 
geous abuse of power. Maryland's leaders, 
wmn the deputy governors, may have been 
le^ accustomed than Virginians to think 
of themselves as deserving of whatever they 
could grab.^° 

What certainly is true is that in both 
Maryland and Virginia the appearance of a 
native-born adult population early in the 
eighteenth century made a difference in the 
nature of leadership and the sources of 
stability. While the society was dominattd 
by immigrants, men often died not long 
after achieving the power that years of ef- 
fort had enabled them to acquire, and in 
any case, did not live to see a son come of 
W^im Wflkte them. In tjft 'ftfBfer creole 
society, men achieved power at an earlier 
age, held on to it longer before they died, 
and bequeathed it, like their wealth, to their 
mm. No longer were men of small begki- 
Trtttigg-titating their wealth and power dmc 
the course of their lives and learning ways 
to use it responsibly as they reaped its 
benefits. They were born to wealth and 
position. Newcomers could enter the circles 
of power, especially if they nrsErried into it. 
But rising prices of land and bound labor — 
especially slaves — limited the opportuni- 
ties to rise from the bottom.®^ Chesapeake 
leaders of the eighteenth century more 
closely fitted the traditional models of men 
fit for power than had their predecessors. 
Stability in its more traditional forms in- 

bility and freedom to rise. On the other 
hand, mobility and freedom had also had 
their price in truncated careers, children 
left without kin, servants brutalized when 
l!lmf ''mf«Wb'M'm^OTk, and probably a 
generally higher level of what in England 
or New England would have been consid- 
ered social deviance.®^ Who can say 
whether the people of Maryland and Vir- 
ginia regrd;*ISl'^ dMinge? 



References 

The author wishes to thank Richard Beeman, Paul 
G.E. Clemens, J. Frederick Fausz, David W. Jordan, 
Russell R. Menard, Jean Russo and especially Lorena 
S. Walsh for reading and commenting on earlier drafts 
of this essay. They are, of course, in no way cesponnbl^ 
for errors of fact or interpretation. 

1. Edmund S. Morgan has provided the most per- 
suasive presentation of this position in American 
Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colon- 
ial Virginia (New York, 1975), esp. chs. 11-14. See 
also, T. H. Breen, Puritans and Adventurers: 
Change and Persistence in Early America (New 
York, 1980), ch. 6: "Looking Out for Number One: 
The Cultural Limits on Public Policy in Early 
Virginia," pp. 106-126, and comments by John 
Murrin in a review ffiligia'. mi Wmr^' 
11 (1972), 229, 273. ^ ^ ' 

2. Bernard Bailyn, "Politics and Social Structure in 
Virginia," in James Morton Smith, ed., Seven- 
teenth-Century America: Essays in Colonial His- 
tory (Chapel Hill, N. C, 1959), 90-115, quote on 

3. Morgan, Ameirfcm Slavery, American Pfeedom, 
ch. 11; T. H. Breen and Stephen Innes, "Myne 
Owne Grounde": Race and Freedom on Virginia's 
Eastern Shore, 1640-1676 (New York, 1980); and 
Breen, Puritans and Adventurers, ch. 6, make the 
case for exploitation. For life expectancies, see 
Lorena S. Walsh and Russell R. Menard, "Death 
in the Chesapeake: Two Life Tables for Men in 
Early Colonial Maryland," Maryland Historical 
Magazine, 69 (1974), 211-227 (hereafter cited ^ 
MHM); Darrett B. and Anita H. Rutman, "Of 
Agues and Fevers: Malaria in the Early Chesa- 
peake," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., ^ 
(1976), 31-60 (hereafter cited as WMQ); Carville 
Earle, "Environment, Disease, and Mortality in 
Early Virginia," in Thad W. Tate and David L. 
Ammerman, eds.. The Chesapeake in the Seven- 
i»0lt^'€entury: Essays on Anglo-American 
'tmtmtics (Chapel Hill, 1979), 96-125. O* fewv- 
ant immigration, see Russell R. Menard, "Ec<m- 
omy and Society in Early Colonial Maryland" 

M«fe: T/ie Seventeenth-Cm^mry ^Hr$iMmi (Char- 
felM^ilie, 1971), 5. O^s^rtmbs Mi -marriage, 
see Russell R. Menard, "Immigrants and Their 
Increase: The Process of Population Growth in 
E^rly Colonial Maryland," in Aubrey C. Land, 
Lois GTeen Carr, and Edward C. Papenfuse, eds.. 
Law, Society, and Politics in Early Maryland {BtA- 
timore, 1977), 88-110. 

4. For the education and social origins of officehoW- 
ers and the turnovers in officeholding, see Lcm 
®mR C^, "The I^{wiMm6 of BmM OtM: 

«i^MMe kr^mt^ Mik^mr %i 

^tueMl-t)m^\s, ed.. Town and County: Esse^ 
on Ike Strw^ure of Local Government in the Amer- 
ican Colonies (Middletown, Conn., 1978), 91 and 
Table 1. 

5. For the arguments for <^portunity, see references 
HffsimMifie 19 belflw. 



PoUtkaL StoMHty and Upheaved 



67 



6. J. H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in 
England, 1675-1725 (Baltimore, 1969), 12. 

7. This definition is similar to that used by David 
W. Jordan in "Political Stability and the Emer- 
gence of a Native Elite in Maryland," in Tate and 
Ammerman, eds.. The Chesapeake in the Seven- 
teenth Century, 244. 

8. Unpublished are James Russell Ferry, "The For- 
mation of a Society on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 

• • 1615-1655" (unpubl. Ph. D. dissertation. The 

Johns Hopkins Univ., 1980); Michael J. Graham, 
S.J., "Lord Baltimore's Pious Enterprise: Tolera- 
> tion and I^versity in Colonial Maryland, 163i^ 
1724" (unpubl. Ph. D. diss., Univ. of Michigan, 
4983), chs. 3-4; Lorena S. Walsh, Women's Net- 
Works in the Colonial Chesapeake (paper pre- 
I sented to the Organization of American Histori- 
ans, Cincinnati, April 1983). About to appear is 
Darrett and Anita Rutman, A Place in Time: 
Middlesex County, Virginia, 1650-1750, 2 vols. 
(New York, 1984). 

9. Unpublished research of Lorena S. Walsh to ap- 
' pear in Lois Green Carr, Russell R. Menard, and 
-liOTena S. Walsh, Robert Cole's World (in prog- 

ww^ !Bi'..'ll|i|li<wni fiwrnM i/m* cmwtiw w 

' households present in the 1660s and 16708 and 
other people whose location could be identified. 
Perry, "Formation of a Soeiety," 8f=48, t^s m 
- <that 92% of all face-to-faee «an^t8 between 
landowners revealed in court records rqiremited 
distances traveled of no more than 6 miles. 
10. For a hilarious account of a funeral, although not 
on the manor, see William Hand Browne et al., 
eds.. The Archives of Maryland, 72 vols, to date 
(Baltimore, 1883—), LIII, 194, 207-210 (hereafter 
cited as Archives). Administration accounts show 
expenditures for funeral dinners and reimburse- 
ments for "provisions in sickness." See, for ex- 
ample, ibid., X, 311, 398; Testamentary Proceed- 
■ings 12B: 5-9; 13: 217-219, mss., Maryland Hall 
of Records. (Unless otherwise noted, all manu- 
scripts cited are located at the Hall of Records.) 

Lorena S. Walsh discusses funeral practices and 
participation of neighbors in "Charles CotH^, 

• - Maryland, 165&-1705: A Study of Chetrqjeahe So- 

cial and PolitietfSlmcture" (unpuMM>hi% ifKse., 
••'Michigan St«*^iv., 1977), IS^^^^feWlP* fii 
■ '^Account of how guardians wew < i ft»6faifai and 

supervised in Maryland, see Lo^ tjfeeft Carr, 
' ""The Development of the Maryland Orphan's 
' Court, 1654-1715," in Land, Carr, and Papenfiise, 

eds., Law, Society, and Polities, Ah^riimmteL S. 

Walsh discusses the experience w5 dt0dKA m 

mitOMIftody in the Early Colonial Chesapealie: 
' k Case Study (unpubl. paper presented te tfce 

Fifth Berkshire Conference on WoiiMftfti MSftety, 

Poughkeepsie, June 1981), and Mi '*0|jBil«6 
••^County, Maryland," 111-124. Luke Gardner 

leoked after the St. Clement's Manor plantation 
•* -ilHi 1ift.iMldren of his deceased friend, Robert 

•CiWe, fBPll years betwewi 1662 and 1673, until 

• the oldest son came of '■jje^^MMMKIKMl^' Pro- 
iceedings 6: 120-146, mmk? WM l It UMu Ji wsre god- 
pnrents i« ""M Dei^ ^^9>igM|«Marriage and 
¥&m&y il^§mi^miait^S^mSfS''WkTyland," in 



Tate and Ammerman, eds.. The Chesapeake in the 
Seventeenth Century, 147. For an example of 
manor neighbors as godparents, see Wills 1: 605, 
ms. On Thomas Gerard, see his file in Seven- 
teenth-Century Career File, St. Mary's City Com- 
mission, Maryland Hall of Records, and Archives 
XLI, 169. Perry, "Formation of a Society," 100- 
104, 107-115, discusses all these varieties of neigh- 
borhood contacts. 

11. Archives LVII, 33-34; Provincial Court Deeds, 

66. 

12. ^eetraent P^ers and Chancery Court Proceed- 
ings aboinid with depositions showing how people 
transferred iwfe wnati w> 4mm one getieration to 
another. 

13. On these points, see Lois Green Carr and Lorena 
S. Walsh, "The Planter's Wife: The Experience 
of White Women in Seventeenth-Century Mary- 
land," WMQ, 3d Ser., 34 (1977), 542-571; Darrett 
B. and Anita H. Rutman, "'Now-Wives and 
Sons-in-Law': Parental Death in a Seventeenth- 
Century Virginia County," in Tate and Ammer- 
man, eds.. The Chesapeake in the Seventeenth 
Century, 153-182; Lorena- &.'-Walsh, Land, 
Landlord, and Leaseholden^Estttte Management 
and Tenant Fortunes in Southern Maryland, 
1642-1820 (unpubl. paper presented to the Con- 
ference on Washington, D. C. Historical Studies, 
Washington, D.C., March 1983); and Perry, "For- 
mation of a Somi*y i^^^^&fmt 'M&-107. 

14. Archives XLI, 7+. 

15. Ibid., XLIX, 166-167, 53, 628; Testaaiw«t«ry*>ro- 
ceedings 12B: 238-254; Perry, "Fonim^ of a 

•»®9eiety," 117-121. 
l«.*#iirr, "Foundations of Social Order," in Daniels, 
' Tmmiind County, 78-79; Carr, "Orphan's 
Court,'' in Land, Carr, and Papenfuse, eds., Law, 
Society, and Politics, 42-44. Acts of Ass^bly 
required creditors «%d4lRd'^tained judgsiMibsiA 
the camts wait until the tobaee e ' MS p w a s ^wtdy 
befen^SiVlltefting, but the debteM WMto find se- 
Wa^^ite'Siim'^rtM)e» B, aS^-t^f^, 5 19) . All 
mmwimmiti9mM^<¥Mk>hmiii»'i0tm pay- 

- -ii^Siirf a^HMll #tt pttttmm^n^, iee^. 9. 

m 'Ilois' Green Carr, "Cdvbtjr GdV«(«l»iM hi iXary- 
tod, 1689-1709" (unpubl. Ph. t>. -dM, Harvard 
Univ., 1968), Text, 363-364; AiWMfeW- LIII, 628; 
Lois Green Carr and Russell R. Me^id, "i»mi- 
gration and Opportunity: The Freedaiiniii^rly 
Cok>BMl Marykmd," in Tate M AMMMHsan, 
<kilksc,'9ke' 0m^ l pe i i ie '^'^»m#eifHteSy^ury> 
212-21«. 1 

19. RusB^ R. Men«rd, "From Servant to Freeholder: 
48tllM6 4thM%<«nd Property Accumulation in 
Sevwfite«ith-iC»litury Maryland," WMQ, 3d Ser., 
30 (1973), 37-64; Canr-MdMNMnd, "loHnigration 
and Opportunity," in IMe M^^tenftrman, eds.. 
The Ckes^eidte in «Wi 9 it> aj ilfe W t « t Century, 233; 
Lorenft S. Wdhsh, "^^MutfiiMjd' Opportunity in 

m 'Gm, 'Y%w(MieM ofl^eM Ofiir,* to B«iiiels, 



68 



MARYLAMD HiST«ICAL MAOASaNE 



ed., Town and County, 78-79. 

21. The discussion that follows of the structure and 
functions of county government and its relation- 
ship to the provincial government is based on ibid., 
72-91. 

22. Archives III, 61, 80-81. 

28. By the end of the 17th century, service on grand 
and petit juries was beginning to be confined to 
landowners, but many kinds of juries of incjuiiy 
#ere not so restricted. For discussion of Virginia 
county government, which was not dissimilar ex- 
cept that parish vestries had some responsibilities, 
see Robert Wheeler, "The County Court in Colon- 
ial Virginia," and William H. Seiler, "The Angli- 
■ ■ m mt(S m m^ ^ B«sic Institution of Local Govern- 
ment in Colcmial Virginia," in Daniels, ed.. Town 
end County, 111-159; Warren M. Billings, "Tie 
Growth of Political Institutions in Virginia, 16l4 
to 1676," WMQ, 3d Ser., 31 (1974), 225-244; 
Perry, "Formation of a Society," 186-205. 
84. Carr, "Foundations of Social Order," in Daniels, 
ed.. Town and County, 72-110; Lois Green Carr 
and David W. Jordan, Maryland's Revolution of 
Government, 1689-1692 (Ithaca, N. Y.: 1974); 
4Sarr, "County Government in Maryland, 1689- 
- -i^," paseim; Walsh, "Charles County, Maiy- 
■ilMM^^ ch. 7; idem., "The Development of Local 
Power Structures on Maryland's Lower Western 
Shore in the Early Colonial Period," in Bruce C. 
Daniels, ed., Power artd Status: Essays on OffifX- 
hMmgiim^ihe American Colonies (Middletown, 
Conn., forthcoming). See also, Perry, "FormatieH 
.*te#^ Society," 186-205, 225-255. 
J^ter 1689, Catholics could not hold any office for 
whi^ the Test Oath — which denied tratisubstan- 
'. iMni— was required. By 1700 only the office *f 
' -Aw^Meer of the highways did not require the taking 
■ - lof tfcis oath (Carr, "County Government in Mary- 
•• ihmd," ch. 6). 
MfM»t examples ^MMtayi* in-ittairiM ey Btt i Clwgtes 

Km til»a;.t^Mid^b*«d<«^l9g(cciMiaJn£M for 
f^oiHity Jodicisl Record, MBS^jIc hH^y&t 
■^MfcjFs».c,iMiiie<*'f }SefiiM'#flMrileUm«-IMt,'S«e 
jA^Mk. of vPrMee -tekime'S 'Smrtm^ .Mtu^itBmt, 

■■msi-mmi^Midmgtm, im;j^ imm 

' ■A.iiii.,.iiiM6e( Sm also, Pwty; 'Ta MMrti wi^af a 

^..HiMMlhM%St. Mary's City CommiBMNi«^li«ry- 

iaiad iMl of Records, 
m rlMM^s'4i^t«MM6<(l. 

>'iiM4«Li^',J^tot^wij^eCiliarie$«C(mM(^ CoHrtfno- 
^•'«MliiipW*t^Wi^i«M«M.^- 

' »%jM'»QMk>m'<^^%.i»Nh»Mii»,«m;for 

■pern mlMi.^lv^i^tMUSe&ff&S^'lm MMMWtti' 
ages judged, 61, 75, 114, 119, 127, 11% 142, 

179, im, mi i^;^^,' mrmf.mt, m, ssi. 



317, 334, 358, 359, 364, 428, 498, 503, 504, 506, 
527, 529, 551, 552, 564, 565, 575, 590; for servant 
complaints, 63, 108, 117, 142, 180, 344, 493, 495; 
for the courthouse and jail, 615-618. 

31. A good account of this incident is in Garry 
Wheeler Stone, "St. John's: Archaeological Ques- 
tions and Answers," MHM, 69 (1974), 1*7-168. 

32. Archives LIV, 224-225; XLI, 500-505. 

33. /ft/d., VIII, 32-351,. • - • • 

34. Carr, "County GovwfliW^ in Maryland," Text, 
468-471. 

35. Archives XVll, 62. 

36. Carr, "County Government in Maryland," Text, 
511-512, 520-526; Cyrus H. Karraker, Tke Sev- 
enteenth-Century Sheriff: A Comparative StU^ of 
the Sheriff in England and the Chesapeake Colo- 

■ ■ mes, 1607-1689 (Chapel Hill, 1930), 87-159. For 
the sheriff in Virginia, see ibid., 72-73, 76-77. 

97. Carr and Jordan, Maryland's Re mM mi^ <Oov- 
emment, chs. 3, 4, 6. 

38. Raphael Semmes, Crime and Punishment in Early 
Maryland (Baltimore, 1938) discusses examples. 
Joseph Douglas Deal III, "Race and Class in Co- 
lonial Virginia: Indians, Englishmen, and Africans 
«».the Eastern Shore during ttie.^vMitoenth 
•©eiitury" (unpubl. Ph. D. diss., Wm/. eif Wmhee- 
ter, 1981), 117-137, discusses harsh trealaaieiit of 
Eastern Shore Virginia servants. 

J0. Very rec»itly, Bradley Chapin has attempted to 
determine the incidence of ten types of crime per 
thousand population per year in the Maasachu-. 
setts Assistants Court, the Plymouth General and 
Assistants Court, the Accomack-Northampton, 
Virginia, County Court, the Essex County, Mas- 
sachusetts, Court, and the Kent County Ca»rt in 
Maryland for various years before 1660. The re- 
sults would prove that the Chesapeake was not 
more liable to violent crime than New England 
were it not that, first, the Kent County, Maryland, 
population is probably exaggerated, and moi>e im- 

• portant, the population used is not the population 
at risk to commit a crime. There were undoubtedly 
many more adults in the Chesapeake population 
than in those of New England. Capital crinace, 

-.imkmimf0». Htm meka^^m ihe tmm Cimat^ i k e 

mm iJ^duves LK,!4^-'€ta^>^"MNiin/us- 
tice, 140-141, finds that Mmm^^mmlfy ^Sfffirt in 

• Massachusetts prosecH^ dMfcMMss at « rate 
- MfW(.dbaMHKid .af ^KiipMMoiiT^^^ cent higher 

xtkt l n dSMne mmft ^ AeieMB*efe>Mwthampton in 
' i • i^lisinia. Even given that diffeMMs^in. age 
> stRieture of the populatimi are 4«^ie«iMdtt^ for, 

iHai. d Hi M Mtet i8-ln»ti»»fMwt at.4iimti^mees are 

ilr.: i|l<€li«iM Coa*^. M<^iM*ib? W6-1674, there 
• |i Ml rta M «JM' W i teiWa»Cti^ injury 

'rt«iaiaM!«ii*'&c«i^iAMii£» mmam^ case, al- 
.tlMnek-*t«riMVm^.#]Mg: neA »'hHkoEy stick, 
"«et a tfenp Nif fli»t>lMr ii«.taMii»i skin 
(CkiriefiCo«Kl^«6lnitt«Mll:Mi!fiec(wSH no. 1: 



Political StMlity and Upheaval 



69 



211, ms; I am indebted to Lorena S. Walsh for 
this reference). In Prince George's County, Mary- 
land, 1696-1699, there were three prosecutions for 
assault, two with injuries. The third was in court 
time and upon the lawyer of an opponent. There 
were two sets of presentments of fighting, both in 
<*ourt time and involving a number of people who 
had been drinking. These offenses occurred ki 
view ^ the-«Mgi««Ms» (8wwft-i M Wi to8»i ii lfr .MI^, 
CmH Becofds o/ Prince George's Gmm/^-t ^Wk, 
458-465, 495-96). Of 349 particii*iii|g Ib ftiftee 
George's County government, 1696-11fi#i 
prosecuted for an offense over the ptneA WIS^ 
1720. Thirty-four were {voseeated fttr assmAt or 
f^^ting (33 were guilty); 5 few Hri^tMtHiMt of 
servants (all guilty); 10 tea theft (lil bift one 
cmicemed kiUiag livest^ek hi ^ woods, 3 guilty); 
13 fte em^mm^ &S eewt (iM guilty); 8 for sexual 
{^leases (< ge^^); 4 1st being drunk on Sunday 
(but none for just drunkenness, all guilty); 3 for 
Kipor license violations (all guilty); 6 for tax 
evasion (3 guilty); 1 for forgery (not guilty); 1 for 
triaipiira^ (^lii^); and 5 ^ fa»8«ich of SdUbMh 
(4 piittjr) (CaiT, *C©iH»ty GwernKMnt in M«Hy- 
koid," Appeȣx, T^Me 4). 7%e 346 paitieipi^ 
included RSft^ aM rasidcrat liHldOwn«« and (»any 
tcRfnts and eomtitoted mere th«& 2/3ds of the 
hea^ of h«B6df«lds. Vmy were tlte nmt settled 
menibms of the comnnniity. Bat 30, or 11%, wete 
pi«eecuted for violence agaiMt pet^^, emdW tlie 
80 pveseevted for imythine, kilf were ac^ 

cueed ^ tM«9t behavior. ProaeciiMoiis isekided 
those in the Provtecial Court, as as in the 
eounty court. 

42. On t^Mne f^m^, see Carr and Walsh, "The Plant- 
et'i WMe," Wiiq, 8d Ser., 84 (1977), 542-671. 

43. Fot accooHts of these e^wnts, le^J'tMO, see Na- 
thwii^ C. I4iie, YirgtHm Venturer. A Hislimieal 
Bio^ephy e/ WMmn CMbome, 1660-1677 (kkh- 
mend, 19S1), etas, 8-13; Ruesell R. Menard, 
"Mioflwid's 'Tune of Troisfetes': Seurces ^ Polit- 
ical I]^8<»der ia Early St. Mary's," MBM, 76 
(1981), 124-140; Aubrey C. Land, C^nkU Mary- 
te»»rf, A Mmtory (New Ywk, 1981), 11, 4S-Si; 
CWlee M. Amkews, Tlte C^omidPermi ofAmer- 
kmt Hk^ary: The SetHemettts, vol. 2 (New MavMi, 
193€), ck. 8; Ckyton Colman Hall, ed., Narrtahes 
f^Emfy hhr^md, 1633-1684 (New York, 191©), 
147-2re. 

44. On the invest<»s, see Rossell R. Menard and Lms 
Qttmi Cmt, "The Loc^ Baltimore and the Cdo- 
niaition <rf Maryland," in David B. Quinn, ed., 
EBrly M®3i*W»d in & Wider World (Detrdt, 1982), 
179-183. 

45. For biograpbiee of all 17 men, see Harry Wri^t 
Newman, The Ftomering ^ the Mterykmd Peiatin- 
ete (Wa«Wii«t«, D. C, 19«l), 172, 179-184, 188- 
191, 200, 111, 213-218, 226-229, 236-2^, 250- 
252, 271, 273-275. Neim«i's id^^eoti^ ot 
Ro4)ert Wiee«ftan tile Henry WisenMn of the 
filtt adventurers is probsMy an error. Only Lecm- 
ard Calvert, Thomas Comwallis, Thomas Greene, 
and John Metcalf appear in any Maryland records 
after 1638. 

46. Menard states that the colony at Ingle's arrival 
was on the brink of collapse ("Maryland's Time 



of Troubles'," MMM, 76 (1981), 136). Garry 
Wheeler Stone argtws <Me wmmtA interpretation 
in "Society, Houshig, tmA ilwiSitecture in Early 
Maryland: John LewgW'g^. #rt«^s" (unpubl. Ph. 
D. <K»s., Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1982M^-^ 136- 
141. •'I** 

47. Archives III, 178-179; IV, 362, 370,-1^^, 376, 
423. Daring Ingle's Raid, itself, Th«iA)«<80iM««l- 
lis, the Brents, and i^< de etiih mi lfcMi[ l'<IM lrchief 
loss of property. Seeaft tel wft dfe i^^illiltyfamd," 
MitjU, I (]>9®g), 125-140; trtmcr'^ioss by Gsrry 
W. Stme Jfnd &BVid B. %i«n of parts of Copley 
u. lagfie, Citower v. Ingie, and Ir^e u. Looking 
•mm ^em HCA 13/119, BCA 2/106 no. m, HCA 
13/it, Mes., PiMc Becml Offi<%, Lo&dmi; md a 
^aHs^j^^ «f pert of Oormmllis u. In^, C24 
690/14, ms., PtASic Record Office, Londton, si^- 
plied by Nod Currer drig^ and Sou^sMte Itts- 
toried WMams^m^, Vii^niti (tM. in the 
ffles ef the St. Mary's City ComnHseicm). ArcMties 
IV, 418, teiMsents Lewger's return to Mwyland. 

48. On the revivid, see Ams^ E. Iilenard, "Ek^nofny 
and SMtety in Eady Cctoiukl Marykind," 213. 

49. On Themas Stone, see R(^bert F. Brenner, "C^- 
mexM ChtM0ee and P^icel Ccmilict: The Mer- 
chant CMBBnmity in Civil War London" (unpHbl. 
Ph. D. PrincetMi Univ., 1970), 110-111, 112, 
142. 

50. On Maryland economic development over these 
years, see Menard, 'Economy and Society," 213- 
215. 

51. On these points, see David W. Jordan, "Mary- 
land's Privy Council, 1637-1715," in Land, Carr, 
and Papenfi»e, eds.. Law, Society, and Politics, 
65-72. 

52. Mmffird, "Economy and Society," 215, 218, 222- 
223. 

53. Early in 1660, the Protestant governor, Josias 
Feidall, tried to establish a Protestant "Comn><xi- 
wealth" in Maryland, but he a^>ears to have had 
little smyKMt. Ttoe is little information on the 
event. See Andrews, Colonial Period, II; Settle- 
memts, 322-323. 

54. The ^s(»issic»i to follow of the revolution and its 
badci^oiMid is a summary of the narrative and 
atiguments in Carr and J<»d«n, Maryland's Revo- 
kltim of Gooernmrnt, esp. cks. 1 and 6. 

55. M^Hvd, "Immigr:mts and Their Increase," in 
Land, Carr, aad Pi^enfuse, eds., Law, Society, 
€Htd Politics, ^110. 

56. AiiArewe, Cdtarial Period, II: Settlements, 332- 
333, 376-378, first called attention to this policy. 
David W. jWdan discusses it in greater detail in 
"Mwrytand's Privy Council," in Land, Carr, and 
¥mptMme, eds., Law, Society, and Politics, 72-75. 

57. 1%e meet rec^t discuesiMi is Morgan, Amerimn 
Ornery, American Freedom, 250-270. See also 
WftetHOb Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel 
(Clmpel Hill, 1%7); T. J. Wertenbaker, Torch- 
bearer of the Revolution Princeton, N. J., 1940); 
John C. Rainbolt, From Prescription to Persua- 
sion: Manipulation of the Seventeenth-Century 
Economy (Port Washington, N. Y., 1974), 91-98. 

58. Perry, "Formation of a Society;" J. Frederick 
Fausz, Authority and Opportunity in the Early 
Chesapeake: The Bay Environment and the Eng- 



70 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



Ksh Connectkm, 1620-4640 ({MpM ^MenW to 
■ the Organizati«H e(Ammnmi^ttmismimm;!^k^m- 
nati, April 1983); Jon Ktricla, Order and Chaos in 
Early America: Political and Social Stability in 
Pre-ReBtoration Virginia (paper presented to 
same; accepted for publication in the American 
• Histnrkal Reukw). I have not had an opportunity 

• ■"•ttiB read Rutman and Rutman, A Place in Time, 

• "•.vwUkteiiM HMOT w|.i.^wbM^4, but I am told that 
< akfUM ^tmk'tilMt plWiilfii (personal commufii- 



'Wttian from At^- Ru^nm^; 

Wi'Whwrier, "T^e Gfewity Oom in Oobnid Vir- 
ginia," in Daniels, ed.. Town and County, 119, 121; 
Elizabeth Hartsook and Gust Skordas, LanA€f^e 
and Prerogative Court Records of Colonial Mary- 
tend (Annapolis, 1946; repr. 1968), 17-19, 82-87. 

60. I am indebted to discussions with LcwMa S. Wakh 
for the development of this poiirt. 

SI. Sec Mem»d's eflsay in this iswie. 



Population, Economy, and Society in 
Seventeenth— Century Maryland 



i.i'i «jf -'ii ' 1. >,ii» 

]By most modern measures of per- 
formance, the Chesapeake colonies gener- 
ally, and Maryland in particular, registered 
impressive gains during the seventeenth 
century. Total population and settled area 
grew at rapid rates, while the amount of 
tobacco produced and exported to England 
and continental Europe increased substan- 
tially. Extensive growth was accompanied 
by notable gains in productivity and in the 
incomes and security of the inhabitants. 
That performance no longer commands un- 
qualified enthusiasm. It was purchased at a 
high cost and built upon a brutal exploita- 
tion. Contemporaries too had doubts, al- 
though they worried little about the de- 
struction of Indian peoples, the high death 
rate among European immigrants, or the 
enslavement of Africans. Instead they com- 
plained that the region was "ill-peopled," 
that it depended too heavily on tobacco, 
that it lacked towns, merchants, and artis- 
ans, that the inhabitants were parochial 
and l»z^r wMmSklii^fm§k- km0miSmtM 



Russell R. Menard is Professor of History at the 
University of Minnesota. He completed his Ph.D. in 
1975, writing a dissertation on "Economy and Society 
in Early Colonial Maryland" (University of Iowa), and 
worked for the St. Mary's City Commission at the 
Hall of Records. His perceptive articles have appeared 
inthe Maryland Historical Magazine, The William and 
Mary Quarterly, and the Virginia Magazine of History 
and Biography, and he has contributed to collections 
such as Law, Society, and Politics in Early Maryland, 
ed. Aubrey C. Land, Lois Green Carr, and Edward C. 
Papenfuse (1977) and The Chesapeake in the Seven- 
teenth Century, ed. Thad W. Tate and David L. Am- 
merman (1979). Dr. Menard's other publications in- 
clude Maryland ... atthe Beginning (1976), with Lois 
Green Carr and Louis Peddicord, The Economy of 
British America, 1607-1790: Needs and Opportunities 
for Study (forthcoming), with John J. McCusker, and 
Robert Cole's World: Agriculture and Society in Early 
Maryland (in preparatiMi), with Lok dMlf>.Q¥'ilpd 
Lorena S. Walsh. sj^'^ajrT ^ 



grace. The historian of Maryland must con- 
front a paradox: impressive growth on the 
one hand, contemporary disappointment 
on the other.^ 

"It has been universally remarked," 
Thomas Malthus reported in the first Essay 
on Population ^{f#8^,^^fe«^*S'««W cokmies 
settled in healthy countries, where there is 
plenty of room and food, have constantly 
increased with astonishing rapidity in their 
population." Among colonies, he continued, 
those of English North America "made by 
far the most rapid progress," achieving a 
rate of increase "probably without parallel 
in history."^ Malthus ignored the decline of 
Native Americans (curious omission given 
his dismal theorem), but he accurately de- 
scribed the demographic history of Africans 
and Europeans, and Maryland proved no 
exception. The roughly 140 settlers who 
arrived on the Ark and Dove in 1634 grew 
to nearly 600 inhabitants by 1640. Progress 
was interrupted during the next decade as 
severe depression and political turmoil 
joined to produce a "time of troubles." By 
1645, fewer than 200 inhabitants Hved in 
the colony. Recovery began by the late 
1640s, however, and despite occasional 
short-term disruptions, population grew 
rapidly for the remainder of the colonial 
period. There were perhaps 700 people in 
Maryland in 1650, 4000 by 1660, 20,000 by 
1680, and 34,000 at century's end. (See 
Table 1) 

The rapia*fflei%lite i^'WKtyfema^ jjc*^ 
lation obscures a profound demographic 
failure. Over the years 1634 to 1680, be- 
tween 25,000 and 42,000 people, black and 
white — 34,000 can be taken as a "best es- 
timflte" — migrated to Maryland, yet fewer 



Maryland Historical Magazine 
Vol. 79, No. 1, Spring 1984 



72 



Maryland Historical Magazine 





Table 1. 




Estimated Population 


of Maryland, 1640-1730 


Year 


Whites 


Blacks 


total 


1640 


551 


10 


561 


1650 


682 


19 


701 


1660 


3,869 


149 


4,018 


1670 


10,731 


709 


11,440 


im) 


18,537 


1,438 




1690 


23,587 


2,621 


26,208 


1700 


29,729 


4,443 


34,172 


1710 


35,804 


7,879 


43,683 


1720 


46,773 


11,008 


57,781 


1730 


64,602 


17,220 


81,822 



Source: Russell R. Menard, "The Tobacco In- 
dustry in the Chesapeake Colonies, 
1617-1730: An Interpretation," Re- 
search in Economic History, V (1980), 
157-161, 165-166; Menard, "Five 
Maryland Censuses, 1700 to 1712: A 
Note on the Quality of the Quantities," 




than 20,000 inhabitants lived in the colony 
in 1680. Clearly, immigrants were not able 
to replace themselves fully. That failure 
reflected both the characteristics of immi- 
grants and the volatile disease environment 
they encountered once they arrived. Most 
immigrants were afflicted by what contem- 
poraries called a "seasoning" upon arrival 
and many died as a result. The best evi- 
dence suggests that the number of season- 
ing deaths was very high indeed early in 
the century and declined sharply after 1650, 
to perhaps 5 percent, as settlement spread 
inland to healthier sites, as shipping pat- 
terns shifted so immigrants arrived in the 
fall rather than in mid- to late summer, 
and as diet and living conditions improved. 
The problem persisted, however, as recur- 
ring epidemics proved especially destruc- 
tive of new settlers, and there may have 
I been a reversal of the downward trend late 
in the century when blacks brought new, 
African diseases to the tobacco coast. Nor 
could immigrants who survived seasoning 
expect a long life in Maryland: during the 
seventeenth century, immigrant males who 
reached age twenty could expect to die in 
their early forties, and fewer than 30 per- 
I cent celebrated their fiftieth birthday.^ 

While the death rate alone was a sub- 
,i^9P^i^4K^^«|^l!eproduction, the diffi- 
culties were compounded by the sex ratio 



and by marriage patterns. Among English 
immigrants to the Chesapeake during the 
1630s, men outnumbered women by abomt 
six to one. The proportion of women in- 
creased sharply around mid-century and 
slowly thereafter, but even in the 1690s, 
two to three men arrived for each woman. 
In some societies marked hy severe sexual 
imbalance, people adjust marriage patti^m 
to accommodate the disparity. There was 
some adjustment in Maryland, but the pos- 
sibilities were limited by the ages and con- 
tractual obligations of immigrant women. 
Most women who cam.e to Maryland during 
the seventeenth century were indentured 
servants in their early twenties, bound for 
four or more years before they were free to 
marry. The combination of high mortality, 
a severe shortage of females, and late mar- 
riage meant that among immigrants to the 
Chesapeake there were many more deatlMi 
than births. 

Such severe demographic conditions 
wreaked havoc on family life among immi- 
grants. Long periods of servitude and the 
shortage of women led to frequent sexual 
abuse and to high rates of illegitimacy and 
bridal pregnancy. More than 10 perce^Ji'OT 
the children born to immigrant women dur- 
ing the seventeenth century were bastards, 
and about one-third of those women were 
pregnant when they married. Since immi- 
grants married late and died young, mar- 
riages were short-lived. In Charles County, 
for example, the typical seventeenth-cen- 
tury marriage lasted 6l5^rSfiii« years l3«ft)re 
death ended it; in Somerset County, some- 
what healthier, immigrant marriages were 
more durable, lasting thirteen years on av- 
erage. Given the sex ratio, remarriage for 
women was common and quick, creating a 
marriage system perhaps best described as 
serial polyandry. Serial polyandry moder- 
ated the impact of the shortage of women 
on the opportunities for men to find wives., 
but at least a quarter of the adult males in 
early Maryland died unmarried. Families 
were small. Women who migrated to Mary- 
land during the seventeenth century rarely 
had more than four children. At the pre- 
vailing rates of childhood mortality, this 
was hardly adequate to replace parents in 
the population, let alone compensate for 
the shortage the frequency 

of death due to seasoning. In the face of 



Pcpalation, Ecdttamy, and Society 



73 



such high mortality it was a rare child who 
reached age twenty before being orphaned, 
a rare parent who became a grandparent.* 
Immigrants did have some children, how- 
ever, and they gradually transformed Mary- 
land's demographic regime. Creoles (inhab- 
itants of Old World descent born in the 
colonies) differed from immigrants in sev- 
eral important ways (see Table 2). For one 
thing, Creoles — at least the adult males 
among them — lived longer than their im- 
migrant forebears. The gains were not 
large, however; it is not clear that they 
extended to native born women; and child- 
hood mortality rates were shocking by 
twentieth-century standards: nearly thirty 
percent of the children born in Maryland 
during the seventeenth century died by age 
one, nearly half before age twenty. For an- 
other, the sex ratio among those born in 
the colony was approximately equal, al- 
though as late as 1704 — by which time 
there is firm evidence of reproductive pop- 
ulation gain in the colony — men still out- 
numbered women by m^re thafi three to 

Table 2. 

Demographic Differences between Immigrants 
and Natives in Early Somerset County, 
Maryland 





Immigrants 


Natives 


Mean Age at First 


29.2 yrs. 


23.0 yrs. 


Marriage, Males 






Mean Age at First 


24.7 yrs. 


16.7 yrs. 


Marriage, Females 






Expectation of Life at 


23.9 yrs. 


30.5 yrs. 


Age 20, Males 






Average Length of 


13.3 :frs.^ 


26.3 yrs. 


Marriage 




^eMMmge Numb^ ef 




6.0 


Children, All F^i- 






lies 






Average Number of 


6.1 


9.4 


Children, Com- 






pleted Families" 






Rate of Bridal Pm- 


34% 


19% 


nancy 







" A completed family is one in which both part- 
ners to a marriage survi^ wxHL «ifie's 
forty-fifth birthday. 
Source: Russell R. Menard and Lorena S. 

Walsh, "The Demography of Somer- 
set County, Maryland: A Progress 
Report," The Newberry Papers in 
Fmmify and Community History, 
2 (1981). 



two. Finally, and perhaps most important, 
Creole women married at much younger 
ages than their immigrant mothers. The 
vast majority of women born in Maryland 
during the seventeenth century were mar- 
ried before their twentieth birthday, and 
the aver£^ age at marriage may have been 
as low as sixteen years. Such youthful mar- 
riages meant that Creole women had enough 
children to ensure a growing population 
despite a continuing surplus of males and 
a persistent high mortality. 

Creole family life was more stable than 
that of immigrants, but it was far from 
secure. Native-born women seldom had il- 
legitimate children and, with the important 
exception of orphaned girls who wed im- 
migrants, they were less likely to be preg- 
nant when they married. Nearly all native- 
born men were able to firui wives, and, since 
ii!i«l*^^??ller*And lived l<jd^, 
their marriages were usually more durable, 
lasting on average twice as long as mar- 
riages between immigrants. Their families 
were also larger: Creole women who married 
in Maryland during the seventeenth cen- 
tury typically had six children, sufficient to 
reverse the direction of reproductive popu- 
lation change. Creoles were still unlikely to 
become grandparents, but they did so more 
often than had their immigrant forebears. 
Orphanhood, too, was less common, al- 
though it was hardly unusual, and children 
who lost their parents were more likely to 
have kin in the neighborhood to take them 
in. The gradual growth of a native-born 
majority brought more than biological pop- 
ulation growth to early Maryland. It also 
brought a more durable and certain family 
life, a change with important material and 
emotional consequences. 

Changes in the character of immigration 
joined with the beginnings of reproductive 
increase to produce a dramatic shift in the 
composition of Maryland's population. 
There is no enumeratio n of Maryland' s in- 
habitants for the early cMHR^RfH^, tjSJt 
it is possible to construct a rough census 
from tax lists and court records. In 1640, 
Maryland was a frontier society and a 
man's world. Men made up about two- 
thirds of the population and outnumbered 
women by more than four to one. Fewer 
than 20 percent of the inhabitants were 
children. In 1712, men were only 29 percent 



74 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



of Maryland's white population. They still 
outnumbered women, but the sex ratio 
(men per hundred women) had fallen to 
only 122. Children show the most dramatic 
increase: in 1712, 47 percent of Maryland's 
white inhabitants were under age 16. At 
least by a demographic standard, Maryland 
was no longer a colonial frontier.* 

Tobacco 

"Tobacco," Governor Benedict Leonard 
Calvert noted in 1729, "as our Staple is our 
All, and indeed leaves no room for anything 
else."^ Calvert exaggerated — there was 
much "else" to Maryland's economy — but 
he did not exaggerate greatly. Tobacco was 
"King" in the Chesapeake colonies, and to 
a much greater extent than cotton would 
be in the ante-bellum South. It thoroughly 
dominated exports and formed the link that 
tied planters to the larger Atlantic world. 
It provided the means to purchase servants, 
slaves, manufactured goods, and commer- 




A hand of tobacco — the "stinking weede" that put the 
Chesapeake colonies on the map and helped define 
most social and economic relationships. Its longevity 
as a staple crop and a consumer item has long since 
disproved the seventeenth-century belief that colonial 
societies could not be built upon such a "Fumish 
foundation." (Photo courtesy of the St. Mary's City 
Commission.) 



cial services. It attracted immigrants in 
search of opportunities and capital in 
search of profits. It shaped the pattern of 
settlement and the distribution of wealth, 
structured daily and seasonal work rou- 
tines, channelled investment decisions and 
occupational choices, limited the growth of 
towns and the development of domestic 
industry. Even such intimate matters as 
the timing of marriage and conception did 
not escape its imprint. 

The data will not permit a description of 
the growth of the tobacco industry in Mary- 
land, but some evidence on prices, exports, 
and income is available for the Chesapeake 
region as a whole (see Figure 1). These data 
describe an enormous increase in exports 
to Great Britain (a good proxy for produc- 
tion) during the seventeenth century. From 
the time commercial tobacco cultivation 
began in Virginia in 1616 to the mid-1680s 
when planters sent 28 million pounds to 
Britain, exports expanded at a rapid but 
steadily decelerating rate over the long 
term, in a pattern punctuated by sharp, 
short-term swings. The short swings con- 
tinued after the 1680s, but the long-term 
(secular) growth did not. Instead, tobacco 
exports stagnated for roughly thirty years 
before beginning another long period of 
expansion lasting to the Revolution. To- 
bacco prices, on the other hand, fell sharply 
to the 1680s before they too levelled out. 
The price decline was not as steep as the 
increase in exports, however, and the value 
of the Chesapeake tobacco crop rose im- 
pressively, reaching £100,000 by the last 
decades of the century. 

The sharp decline in tobacco prices has 
been a source of confusion among histori- 
ans. Falling prices, it is often argued, re- 
flected: first, a restrictive mercantilist pol- 
icy that kept the Dutch out of the trade 
and channeled tobacco through England no 
matter where its ultimate market; second, 
parasitic governments (both at home and 
abroad) which laid high taxes on tobacco 
and thus restricted its market; and third, 
overproduction by hard-pressed planters 
struggling to make ends meet. And low 
prices brought hard times to the Chesa- 
peake. That interpretation is not com- 
pletely wrong, but it misses the central 
process. Prices fell because planters and 



P(^>idation, Ekoimmy, and Society 



75 



1 00,000,000 n 



1 0,000,000- 



J3 
O 
H 

'o 



100,000- 



10,000 




1620 



1640 



feso 



't700 



172a 



■ reeo 

Figure 1. 

Farm Prices and British Imports of Chesapeake Tobacco, 1616-1730. 

Source: Russell B. Menard, "The Tobacco btdtHti^r.iii the Chesapeake ColoBies, 1617-1730: An Interpretation," 
flm^HthhtSeemmkfWstory; g iiStff), Ml. 



merchants improved productivity and low- 
ered costs, found better and cheapw uNvfB 
of making tobacco and getting it to market, 
captured a variety of scale economies and 
operated more efficiently. Lower costs 
meant lower prices, and lower prices meant 
mose pm&plm «ouM afftjrd 1l6ba^i l»^#e 



customers meant larger markets, and larger 

size and value of the Chesapeake tobacco 
crop. It was not until the 1680s when the 
long-term decline in prices stopped — a 
function of rising costs of land and labor 
and the inability of planters And iramhafite 



MaRYI/AMD HiMmiCAL Ma&azine 



Tobacco 

"Tobacco is the only solid Staple Com- 
modity of this Province: The use of it was 
first found out by the Indians many Ages 
agoe, and transferr'd into Christendom by 
that great Discoverer of America Colum- t 
bus. It's generally made by all the Inhabit- 
ants of this Province, .... 

Between November and January there 
arrives in this PtotAnce Shipping to the 
number of twenty sail and upwards, all 
I Merchant-men loaden with Commodities ' 
; to Trafique and dispose of trucking with 
the Planter for Silks, Hollands, Serges, and 
Broad-clothes, with other necessary 
Goods, . . . for Tobacco at so much the 
pound " 

— George Ah»i», A Character of 
the Province ef Mary-Land 

(1666) 



to capture additional large gains in produc- 
tivity — that the industry stagnated. Plant- 
ers then weathered roughly thirty years of 
"hard times" interrupted by only a brief 
period of prosperity around 1700. 

One source of the confusion among his- 
torians is that planters themselves often 
coinpkttfied of expressed tdtmceo ja^ees, 
and they usually blamed their difficulties 
on mercantilist policies, taxes, and over- 
production. Planter complaints were not 
constant, however, but rather appeared in 
a recurring, cyclical pattern reflecting a 
fundamental instability in the Atlantic 
economy. The long-term movements of 
price and production were not smooth, but 
instep a product of violent short swings, 
of alternating periods of substantial pros- 
perity and profound depression as tobacco 
prices rose and fell. To most planters the 
fluctuations seemed random and unpredict- 
able, beyond their ability to control or com- 
prehend. Since the staple dominated the 
regional economy, the impact of the swings 
went beyond planter incomes to affect the 
pattern of immigration, the growth of pop- 
ulation, the spread of settlement, the extent 
of opportunity, government policy, experi- 
mentation with other crops, the rise of 
manufacturing, and the level of material 
well-^beiiig m the colonies. 



The swings were not entirely random, 
but reflected a largely self-contained price 
and prodoetioH cycle. Short-term increases 
in European demand led to a flurry of ac- 
tivity in the Chesapeake. Planters and mer- 
chants bought new workers and brought 
additional land into cultivation in order to 
increase output and ci|>tupe%iie fetrge jjrof- 
its that higher prices promised. Their re- 
sponse was usually too robust, however, and 
markets were quickly glutted. Prices col- 
lapsed and planters stopped increasing 
their work force tod the si^ ctf thdr plan- 
tations. Lower prices made Chesapeake to- 
bacco more competitive with leaf grown 
elsewhere and permitted the penetration of 
new markets. Demand rose, boom followed 
bust, and the cycle repeated itself. In addi- 
tion to this largely self-propelled cycle, the 
tobacco coast suffered a series of random 
shocks — rln^m from tke ^ii^^lik* of 
the planters at least — as war, metropolitan 
recession, and bad weather reinforced the 
tendency of the economy to swing wildly 
between booming prosperity and deep 
depression. 

From the perspective of English mercan- 
tilists, tobacco was an ideal crop, Maryland 
and Virginia ideal colonies. Tobacco gen- 
erated substantial revenues $he crown, 
fen heavy taxes sleTned not to remlre output 
or consumption greatly. It helped generate 
positive trade balances both by providing 
consumers with an internal source of sup- 
ply for a commodity that would otherwise 
have to be imported from a foreign country 
and by providing a product that could be 
exported abroad. It employed substantial 
numbers of English ships and English mH- 
ors, and it offered Jpkiglish m^jjgh^nts con- 
siderable opporttntities for tta^e. And it 
provided work for men and resources that 
might otherwise have gone unemployed, 
either in making tobacco along the Chesa- 
peake or in the various linked industries at 
home. Finally, colonists spent the income 
they earned from tobacco on English goods, 
providing merchants and manufacturers 

the colonies along the tobacco coast played 
the role laid out for them in the mercantilist 
script. 

Colonists were not always satisfied with 
patt. Planters felt •dbordin«te and 



Population, Economy, and Society 



77 



dependent, unable to control or even fully 
understand the circumstances that gov- 

* erned their lives, expanded and restricted 
their opportunities, alternately swelled and 
shrunk their incomes. They felt so most 

I acutely during the periodic depressions that 
I buffeted the tobacco coast, and it was in 

* 1^»ifte«(^swings that they acted most vig- 
orously to increase their control. Their re- 
sponses were both public and private. 
Depression regularly led to legislative ef- 

J forte to raise tobacco orices, limit produc- 
tion, and control outpfOt, t6 diversify the 

I economy by encouraging towns and domes- 
tic manufactures, to develop new markets, 
and to promote other staple exports. Indi- 
vidually, planters tried to lower costs and 
increase productivity in tobacco as well as 
to create more self-sufficient and diverse 
operations so they would be better able to 
rid^ orft the storms. Eventually those ef- 
forts, especially the private efforts, erected 
a hedge, but the hedge proved low and it 
grew slowly. In large part the problem per- 
sisted because boom regularly followed 
bu«l, »mi when tdNtbdo prices improved, 

" planters again concentrated on the staple. 

* "This is now our case," Virginia's Governor 
William Berkeley explained in 1663: "if the 

, Merchants give us a good price for our 
Tdoacco wee are Well, if they do not wee 
are much better, for that will make us fall 
on such Commodities as God will blesse us 
for when we know not how to excuse fifty 
years promoti^ the basest and foolishest 
vice in the worfd* It is not clear that Berke- 
ley's perverse wish for a long, deep depres- 
sion pointed the way to a solution. The 
planters were trapped: when times were 
IM^rous, colonists pcwsessed the means 
to diversify but not the will; during depres- 
sions the will was there but not the means.' 

Wealth and Welfare 

Analysis of the tobacco industry leaves 
open a wide range of questions concerning 
Maryland's economy. How did planters 
weather the recurring depressions and the 

Was income sufficient to provide comfort 
and a chance to get ahead, or did planters 
face only a grinding poverty and a struggle 
to hold on to what they had? Did wealth, 
iiitel li ^ i Ah d; li^iri|>«tt^iinpiB ii^^Mtee mm 



time? And how were the rewards of the 
economy distributed among the inhabit- 
ants? ' 

Fortunately, probate documents — the 
wills, inventories, estate accounts, and ad- 
ministrative records surrounding death and 
the distribution of property — provide an 
opportunity fe «ia4«»B smh questions. For- 
tunately, too, they are available in abun- 
dance for Maryland. A small cluster of in- 
ventories survives for the years around 
1640, and there is a nearly continuous se- 
riife fPCUfi 1^8 oil. Unfortunately, they do 
not tell us exactly what we wish to know. 
Inventories report the wealth (or part of 
the wealth) of some recently deceased prop- 
erty owners. We are interested in the in- 
comes of the living population. They do, 
however, report that wealth in exquisite 
detail, listing and appraising all a dece- 
dent's possessions except the real estate. 
And it is possible to build on them to «Sti- 
mate wealth per capita. Further, they ^©Id 
insight into the dynamics of grof^ in early 
Manfland.* I 

f^gti^^ re^rts mean and meiian wealth 
per probated decedent over the years 1638 
to 1705 in four counties on Maryland's 
lower Western Shore — St. Mary's, Charles, 
Calvert, and Prince George's. Despite vio- 
lent fluctuations about the base line, the 
long-term trends are clear. Between 1640 
and 1660 mean wealth fell from slightly 
over £100 to well under £100. The pattern 
of change in the intervening pefiod is now 
lost, for few inventories survive for the 
years 1643 to 1657. However, for reasons 
discussed below it is likely that a steep 
collapse in the mid-1640s was followed by 
a steady Increase. Mean wealth rose stead- 
ily from 1660 to the early i^(^^'Sh&i then 
levelled out, fluctuating around £150 
through the early eighteenth century. Me- 
dian wealth, on the other hand, was much 
higher in 1660 than in 1640 and then rose 
slowly to about 1670 before it also levelled 
out, hovering at just over £50 for the next 
three decades. We can take the distance 
'between tl^ memkmA nf^<ifl«^ avi'iifv^x 
of distribution; roughly, the greater that 
distance, the greater the inequality. 
Wealth, then, became much more evenly 
distributed among Maryland property own- 



78 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



.1 I. 



Annual Data 
Trend line 



500 
400 




FiGURE 2. 

'Mean and Median Total Estate Value on the Lower Western Shore of Maryland, 1638-1705. 



Source: Russell R. Menard, P.M.G. Harris, and Lois Green Carr, "Opportunity and Inequality: The Distribution 
of Weath on the Lower Western Shore of Maryland, 1638-1705," Maryland Historical Magazine, LXIX 
(1974), 172. 



increased as the mean first rose more rap- 
idly than the median and continued to rise 
while the median remained level. From the 
early 1680s to 1705, neither mean nor me- 
dian changed over the long haul and the 
distribution stabilized. 
>' #l ri b i8 '# «<i rtwiN i» Hmkym'ti step further 
by reporting wealth per household and 
wealth per capita on the lower Western 
Shore for the years 1658-61, 1681-84, and 
1703-5. These figures are very rough, for 
fti^ rest m e^imt^—^mmtimmmi^m^t 



guesses — of several parameters that cannot 
be measured directly. One should not place 
great confidence in the absolute numbers, 
but they capture the pattern of change. 
These data demonstrate that Maryland's 
economic growth was more than a simple 
( gSttmtm fpmeess reflecting only incr eB w e* ' 
in population and settled area. There were 
impressive per capita gains as well. Wealth 
per resident grew rapidly — at an annual 
rate of 2.5 percent — from 1660 to the early 
1«S8@6 b^»re kvdling or perhaps de- 



Popidation, Economy, and Society 



79 



Table 3. 

Estimated Private, Non-human, Physical Wealth per Household and per Capita on Maryland's 

Lower Western Shore, 1658-1705 r,nh 











Average 






Moveables 


Real Estate 


Wealth 


Persons 


Wealth 




per 


per 


per 


per 


per 


Date 


Household 


Household 


Household 


Household 


Capita 


1658-61 


£67 


tm 


£1"13 






1681-84 


£114 


£46 


£160 


6.6 


£24.2 


1703-05 


£137 


£70 


£207 


8.7 


£23.8 



Note: The figures report all private wealth held on Maryland's Lower Western Shore — exclusive 
of servants, slaves, cash, and debts receivable — in local currency divided by a commodity 
price index to produce a constant value series. Details of their construction are available to 
interested scholars on request. 



dining gently to the beginnings of the 
eighteenth century. Other evidence sug- 
gests that the pattern of stable or slowly 
falUng levels of wealth per capita persisted 
years before beginning a 
sharp increase around 1750 teM to 
the Revolution.^ 

These figures describe an impressive 
ftdue^ment. If we a^mime a wealth to in- 
#!!fi^tatio of thf eMS* one, per capita in- 
comes had reached £8 currency in Mary- 
land by the 1680s. This suggests that Mar- 
ylanders were nearly as well off as residents 
of England and Holland in the late seven- 
teenth century and substantially better off 
than the French. It also compares favorably 
to the estimate of £12 sterling reported by 
Alice Hanson Jones for the southern colo- 
nies in 1774, and it is higher than measured 
incomes in many of today's less-developed 
countries. However, per capita income in 
the United States is now some 25 times 
larger. Such numbers cannot be interpreted 
literally. It is not clear that residents of the 
early Chesapeake were wealthier than are 
Kenyans or Indians today or that we in the 
United States are 25 times richer than Mar- 

'fi^mt4"m%»'^m!i^"^&^m^mies of 

those places are too different and the meas- 
ures too rough to support so exact a com- 
parison. It is clear, however, that the econ- 
omy of the tobacco coast performed hand- 
somely by seventeenth-century stan- 
dards. 

These data seem to support an export- 
centered interpretation of wealth and in- 
come levels in early Maryland. Up to the 
^f^, the Chesapeake tobacco industry ex- 



panded rapidly as planters and merchants 
discovered more efficient methods of mak- 
ing and marketing the staple. Apparently, 
improved productivity led to real gains in 
wealth and income. Bj^l^'fSgOs, the gains 
that flowed from "learning by doing" had 
about run their course, planters faced rising 
prices for land and labor, and a series of 
wars disrupted the Atlantic economy. The 
result^«^%iirty years of stagnatiori'tH^me 
tobacco industry and the end of growth in 
planter income. The tobacco industry be- 
gan a period of renewed expansion just 
before 1720, but this growth was achieved 
without major gains in productivity and 
through the geographic extension of culti- 
vation and was not of the sort that would 
produce rising incomes per head. Beginning 
in the 1740s, however, a shift in the terms 
of trade in favor of agriculture and rising 
demand for food in Europe and the West 
Indies created new opportunities for Ches- 
apeake planters, especially in the produc- 
tion of grains and wood products; breathed 
new life into a once sluggish export sector; 
and drove per capita wealth to new highs. 
Here, it seems, are the beginnings of a 
powerful hypothesis capafife''^ iWSinfe 
wealth and welfare to foreign trade and of 
confirming an export-led growth model for 
the Chesapeake economy.^^ 

Or so it seems. However, efforts to push 
the model further quickly run into difficul- 
ties. In the first place, direct measures of 
income per capita from exports describe a 
markedly different pattern from that of 
physical wealth. Income per bead from to- 
bacco declined sharply to iil0'afii"llii6ii 



80 



Maryland Histokkjai, Magazine 



fell slowly for the remainder of the seven- 
teenth century. If tobacco shaped the 
course of wealth and welfare, its impact 
was indirect. The staple placed a floor un- 
der incomes in early Maryland, but it was 
an unstable floor with a gently declining 
slope. Further, the apparent coincidence of 
growing wealth and secular patterns in the 
tobacco trade during the seventeenth cen- 
tury was just that, a coincidence. If wealth 
data for the lower Western Shore as a whole 
are disaggregated into their several regional 
components, it becomes clear that each re- 
gion went through a period of initially rapid 
increase for roughly twenty years followed 
by a levelling out, with the timing of change 
closely related to the date of settlement and 
the pattern at least in part a function of 
shifts in the composition of the population. 
By summing these discrete regional move- 
ments to a somewhat artificial unit, an 
illusion of convergence can be created and 
a false conclusion accepted.'^ 

The increase in wealth during the sev- 
enteenth century is remarkable. It occurred 
Himfite falling per capita income from to- 
bacco and in the face of demographic 
changes that reduced the share of the pop- 
ulation in the work force. The best evidence 
suggests that the growth of wealth was a 
*r««m-«# ^li«rafi building" or "pioneering," 
which was, as Percy Wells Bidwell ob- 
served, "a process of capital making."" 
New settlements in early Maryland were at 
first characterized by low wealth levels, but 
the process of carving out working farms 
provided ample opportunities for saving, 
investment, and accumulation. As a result, 
wealth grew rapidly in the early decades of 
settlement. Planters worked hard to clear 
land, erect buildings and fences, build up 
their livestock herds, plant orchards and 
gardens, construct and improve their 
Jwmes, and the like. As they did so, their 
estates increased in value. There were lim- 
its to this growth process, however. Once 
enough land had been cleared and fenced 
to make a crop of tobacco and meet the 
household's need for food, once livestock 
herds had become large enough to satisfy 
meat and dairy requirements, once the 
plantation had a fruit-bearing orchard and 
a comfortable house, there was little most 
plURtefs, could ^ 



wealth. Thus, the initial growth spurt in 
per capita wealth levels was typically fol- 
lowed by a long period of stability lasting 
to the 1740s. World food shortages and 
shifts in the terms of trade in favor of 
agriculture then created new opportunities 
for planters and drove estate values to new 
highs. 

It would be an error to assume too close 
an identification of wealth levels with in- 
come and living standards. Income to 
wealth ratios varied, and living standards 
changed in subtle ways not easily captured 
by summary statistics on total estate value. 
Income, it is clear, did not grow as rapidly 
as wealth during the initial growth spurt, 
and it is likely that living standards contin- 
ued to improve, albeit slowly, once wealth 
levels stabilized. This does not mean that 
wealth measurements are a poor proxy for 
the performance of the Maryland economy 
..QT tbat ch^ig^. m wealth per capita were 
unimportaift for material welfare. In the 
first place, there were some income gains 
during the initial growth spurt; the point is 
not that income ilH^d to grow, but only 
that it failed to grow as rapidly as wealth. 
Secondly, gains in wealth greatly increased 
the security and flexibility of Maryland's 
families, provided an important cushion 
against th«9}ifti^'8fM^p> m the export sec- 
tor, and gave planters opportunities to pur- 
sue a variety of strategies that could im- 
prove their standard of living. 

Farm building was hard work, but the 
rewards were great. And once it wa« accolH- 
plished, once, that is, families had working 
farms in full operation, they could turn 
their hands to other tasks and purchase a 
few amenities that might help make life 
more comfortable. An adequate stock of 
cattle and swine, for example, made possi- 
ble increased consumption of meat and 
dairy products, while orchards and gardens 
added variety and nutritional value to diets. 
Families could also, as the demands of farm 
work diminished, increase their self-suffi- 
ciency by weaving cloth, making clothes 
and shoes, processing food, and the like. 
And income that no longer had to be plowed 
back into the farm or spent on necessities 
could go to the purchase of minor luxu- 
ries — spices, ceramics and pewter, furni- 
Ij^mrSt^ c}o4h, iB^o««d bed6mg—4imt 



Pf^ndation, Ee&ftcmy, and Society 



81 



made life more pleasant. For most inhab- 
itants, life in early Maryland was harsh and 
uncertain, but the process of farm building 
helped to make it less so. 

The Age of the Yeoman Planter 

Changes in the composition of the mi- 
grant group and in the process of popula- 
tion growth joined with the expansion of 
the tobacco industry and with farm build- 
ing to transform Maryland society. The 
first Lords Baltimore envisioned a struc- 
tured, hierarchic society, an ordered world 
of landlords and tenants organized around 
a manorial system that evoked images of 
England's feudal past. At least in rough 
outline, the society that took shape in early 
St. Mary's reflected that vision. Baltimore 
recruited several "Gentlemen Adventurers" 
for the colony, most of them younger sons 
of prominent Roman Catholic families, and 
they dominated the settlement at St. 
Mary's. They owned the land, the capital, 
and the unfree workers, dominated local 
marketing and credit networks, and held 
the important offices. The majority of or- 
dinary settlers lived and worked on the 
manors of the gentry as indentured serv- 
ants or tenant farmers. A few poor men 
acquired land ^|nd set m a^yi^m^U. 
small planters, wittle citiae material condi- 
tions imposed a rough-hewn equality on 
the new colony, but there was hierarchy, 
structure, and clear distinction between the 
local gentry and the great majority of set- 
tlers.'* 

There was little order, however. Early 
Maryland was plagued by conflict with In- 
dians, London merchants, and the English 
in Virginia and on Kent Island. And it was 
wtacked by internal dissension between the 
proprietor and the colonists, Protestants 
and Catholics, local leaders and more or- 
'i l i> ( ^j f> settlers, and, especially, among the 
gentry. Lord Baltimore's "Gentlemen Ad- 
venturers" proved an unruly lot. They pur- 
sued power, profit, and personal aggran- 
dizement with a singlemindedness that dis- 
rupted pul^'Blfe'^^'^aill'T^^eW*!^ 
effective leadership. As a consequence, 
Maryland collapsed into anarchy in the 
middle 1640s when Richard Ingle, a Prot- 
estant ship captain, and a motley crew of 
a^ikm mii m^mmikM in^eided the se^e- 



ment and brought England's Civil War to 
the tobacco coast.''' 

Maryland survived Richard Ingle, but the 
structured, hierarchical society planned by 
the Calverts did not. Even without Ingle, it 
is unlikely that Baltimore's vision could 
have had more than a transitory impact. 
The vision was marred by a fundamental 
contradiction. On the one hand, Baltimore 
wanted a dynamic, growing economy; on 
the other, a stable, orderly society in which 
men would know their place and defer to 
their natural superiors. Growth meant op- 
portunities and rewards for those with the 
talent, energy, ambition — and freedom — to 
make the most of Maryland's promise, a 
disorderly process incompatible with sta- 
bility, structure, and "natural" hierarchies 
rooted in archaic images of social organi- 
zation. A society sharply different from 
that intended by Lord Baltimore took 
shape around mid-century as Maryland en- 
tered what could be called "the age of the 
yeoman planter." 

The new social order was a product of 
changes in the composition of the immi- 
grant group and of the opportunities avail- 
able to poor men in a rapidly expanding 
economy. During the first decade, most set- 
.j^flg„hfid..t)!een either gentlemen ox their 
servants, and they gave early Maryland its 
distinctive shape, its sharp inequalities and 
hierarchical cast. Few of the gentlemen 
were left in St. Mary's after Ingle's Rebel- 
lion, however. Most had died or returned 
home. As they disappeared, the tsdbStintM 
inequalities that marked the pattern of 
wealth-holding collapsed and a more egal- 
itarian distribution emerged in its place. 
Indentured servants remained a majority 
among immigrants, but their numbers were 
supplemented by small farmers, men who 
arrived with their families and modest 
amounts>*#@i^iis sMae^dbtfCtty from Eng- 
land but most of them ex-servants who had 
gotten a start in Virginia. The new settlers 
transformed Maryland society: the small 
plantation replaced the manor as the typi- 

planter replaced th« gen^e^an as the dom- 
inant citizen."' 

Most of the indentured servants in Mary- 
land after the mid-1640s worked for modest 
•pkkw^bem cm 'Saaall e«ttiiW<<viilMii^HHi« or 



82 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



.3 . I*™ 




( \ } ^ 



•■••-r'A-ii' 



♦^f^*. ^„ 



1 1? .^.-^^^^ 



V ct ■^^ '^-^^^^3^- 



7 ,r*.*.-'*f.p«^«' ■ 

.i* * — •- fl— - 



A page from the estate inventory of Daniel Clocker, a former indentured servant who prospered into the 1660s 
as a small planter and minor officeholder. (Photo courtesy of the St. Mary's City Commission.) 



two other servants. The distinctions that 
separated them from their owners were le- 
gal and economic rather than social, reflect- 
ing differences in the life course rather than 
firm, uncrossable lines of class. Masters 
had often been servants themselves, and 
servants expected, once free to pursue their 
opportunities, to become masters in their 
own right. Servants owned by small plant- 
ers were not isolated from their master's 
family. Small planters could not maintain 
separate quarters for their workers, nor 
could they afford to exempt themselves 
from field work. Servants were "fully inte- 
grated into family life, sharing meals, sleep- 
ing under the same roof," working side-by- 
side with their master on the crop, "treated 
like poor relations or at times like sons or 
daughters."" 

Once free, former servants supplemented 
the ranks of the small planters. Land re- 
mained cheap, and crecfit was r^dily avail- 



able in a rapidly expanding economy. As a 
consequence, many ex-servants were able, 
after a few years work for an established 
planter, to acquire a small tract and set up 
a plantation. Once a plantation was started, 
the process of farm building promised am- 
ple opportunities to accumulate wealth for 
those who worked hard and avoided ill- 
luck, accident, sickness, and early death. 
The extent of those opportunities is illus- 
trated by the experience of 155 servants 
who appeared as freedmen in Charles 
County before 1675. Two-thirds of those 
men became landowners, and more than 
one-third acquired servants of their own. 
Nearly all the landowners found wives and 
established families. And nearly all partic- 
ipated in local government, usually as ju- 
rors or minor officials, sometimes as sher- 
iffs, magistrates, or members of the prov- 
incial assembly. Nor were the lives of those 
who did not get land in the county neces- 



Pcptffafiore, Economy, and Society 



83 



sarily bleak. A few spent their days as la- 
borers, sharecroppers, or tenant farmers, 
but even they sometimes married, held of- 
fice, and accumulated modest estates. Most 
of those who did not buy land left quickly, 
however, doubtless in search of better op- 
portunities elsewhere. Many of those who 
emigrated — especially if they moved to the 
edge of jW ttfc^ttMit ^loiBid what they 
sought.^* 

Life on a small plantation in seven- 
teenth-century Maryland was harsh, im- 
poverished, and uncertain (one is tempted 
to call it "nasty, brutish, and short"). 
Houses were small, dark, drafty, crowded, 
sparsely furnished, and ramshackle — 
"straggling wooden boxes dribbled over the 
landscape without apparent design" in Glo- 
ria Main's apt image. A small planter's 
family typically lived in a 20- by 16-foot 
box frame structure sided with clapboards 
and roofed with shingles, with a wattle and 
daub chimney. Such a house would have a 
floor of beaten earth; usually a single room, 
at most two plus a loft; glassless, curtainless 
windows with shutters to keep out the cold; 
and unadorned, unpainted plank walls im- 
perfectly chinked with clay against the ele- 
ments. Furnishings were simple and crude; 
tjliere would be a bed or two, a rough-hewn 
oeSch and table, some shelving for the pew- 
ter and the wooden trenchers that served 
as dishes, chests for both storage and sit- 
ting, tools, utensils, food, and spare cloth- 
ing hanging from pegs. Such houses were 
cold in winter, hot in summer, wet when it 
rained, always dark and unattractive.'^ 

Small planters may have been poorly 
housed, but they were amply fed. Com was 
the staple of the colonial diet. Cooked into 
"hominy" or "pone," it provided nearly half 
the calories for almost everyone in early 
Maryland. Beef and pork were also regular 
fare. Residents of the tobacco coast con- 
sumed roughly a third of a pound of meat 
per person per day during the late seven- 
teenth century. This corn and salt meat 
base was supplemented by milk in the 
spring (few small planters stored dairy 
products by making butter or cheese), by 
vegetables and fruits when in season, and 
by fish and game, all washed down with a 
mildly alcoholic cider. Food was plentiful 
but jhom^m^^,' Mi§ ^IMk of rasM,y 



produced nutritional deficiences that con- 
tributed to high mortality along the Bay. 

The clothing worn by small planters and 
their families was, like their houses and 
diet, plain but adequate by the standards 
of the day. A man might own a hat or cap, 
a cloth waistcoat, a pair of shoes, and two 
"suits" of clothes consisting of canvas 
breeches, linen drawers, linsey-woolsey 
shirts, and knitted stockings. For women, 
"a simple linen shift . . . tucked into a full 
skirt that ended above the ankles composed 
the basic outffK** 'S^*^^ and slaves 
dressed in a similar fashion, as did chillMA 
once out of the toddler stage.'^" 

It was not the drabness of their lives that 
worried small planters, for material condi- 
tions among English common folk were no 
less plain, but the uncertainties. Despite 
their hard work — and carving farms out of 
Maryland's wilderness was certainly that — 
unpredictable tobacco prices could leave 
them without the means to purchase ne- 
cessities or, worse, unable to pay their debts 
and hold on to their home. Worse still, 
illness, accident, and early death might 
strike a man or woman down at any time, 
with severe consequences for the family 
members who remained. For those who 
managed to ride out the hard times and to 
stay healthy, however, life was not without 
its satisfactions or its prospects. 

Some former servants captured those 
prospects, moved beyond the ranks of the 
small planters to achieve a more comfort- 
able and secure "middling" status. A for- 
tunate few acquired great wealth by colon- 
ial standards, although most of the truly 
affluent planters were free immigrants who 
arrived with capital and good English con- 
nections. What is most striking about these 
more successful men is the absence of clear, 
sharp distinctions setting them off from 
their poorer neighbors. They, too, earned 
the bulk of their income from agriculture, 
although the richest among them managed 
plantations rather than worked them and 
often supplemented their earnings with 
profits from trade, an office, or a profession. 
At least before 1700, even the wealthy 
planters chose to live in a "plain" style, 
although there were a few exceptions. Their 
houses are best described as larg^, more 
ccHnfortaWe versions of those of mnsi\ 



84 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



planters, less crowded and better furnished, 
to be sure, but hardly grand. The stately 
mansions that we now associate with the 
great planters are products of the eight- 
eenth century. Their diets too rested on a 
corn and salt meat base, although they ate 
a greater variety of foods. As planters built 
up their farms and improved their estates, 
they planted orchards, vegetable gardens, 
and small patches of wheat for bread and 
pastries, and they were more likely to make 
beer, butter, and cheese. Their larger in- 
comes also permitted the occasional pur- 
chase of rum, molasses, sugar, spices, cof- 
fee, tea, chocolate, and the like. Their cloth- 
ing resembled that of the lesser planters, 
but there was more of it and it often in- 
cluded a "greatcoat" against winter, while 
the well off usually kept a fashionable suit 
for special occasions. In sum, what we know 
about living standards in early Maryland 
suggests a broad homogeneity and an ab- 




Modern reconstruction of a 17th-century farmhouse 
(ca. 1680). The Godiah Spray Plantation, St. Marie's 
Citty. (Photo courtesy of the St. Mary's City Commis- 
sion.) L, ^,|( ii. r,,-»w ^(.'Ia 



sence of sharp class distinctions, a society 
in which even those rich enough to have 
options chose the "country style" of a 
"sturdy yeoman farmer" over the formal 
elegance of a "planter oligarch." As Main 
has noted, "getting a living, rather than 
ornamenting it, was the order of the day."^' 

The open, relatively undifferentiated na- 
ture of Maryland society in the third 
quarter of the seventeenth century is per- 
haps best illustrated by the biographies of 
men who held positions of power in local 
government. Somerset provides an exam- 
ple, although the evidence could be drawn 
from any of Maryland's counties. Twenty- 
four men from Somerset County sat on the 
bench, in the Assembly, or served as sheriff 
between 1665 and 1673. None of them was 
born into a station that would have assured 
easy access to an office of power in Eng- 
land. As a group they were not sharply 
distinguished by wealth, birth, or education 
from the generality of Somerset planters. 
Henry Boston, and probably Stephen Hor- 
sey, Ambrose Dixon, and William Bosman, 
had started out in Virginia as servants. 
Dixon, James Jones, Randall Revell, and 
Nicholas Rice were illiterate. Horsey and 
Revell were coopers, Rice a carpenter, 
Dixon a caulker. Most earned their liveli- 
hood making tobacco; none were rich 
enough to escape work in the fields. So- 
merset was governed by small planters, for- 
mer servants, and men who could not write 
their names, a group whose collective bi- 
ography could be replicated in a random 
sample of household heads in the county.^^ 

Somerset's rulers were not distinguished 
from their neighbors by wealth, birth, or 
education, nor did they think of themselves 
as members of a distinct group. Evidence 
on group consciousness is difficult to come 
by, but enough can be gathered to suggest 
that Somerset's office holders did not view 
those they governed as their social inferi- 
ors. There was intermarriage among the 
children of Somerset's rulers, but children 
married outside the group as frequently as 
they married within. For example, three of 
Justice William Bosman's four daughters 
married small planters of undistinguished 
backgrounds, while Justice John Elzey's 
eldest son Arnold married Major Waller, 
daughter of a small planter without an of' 



palliation, Ecormmy, and Society 



85 



fice of power. When writing their wills, 
Somerset's office holders appointed their 
neighbors as executors of their estates with- 
out regard to rank. Bosman, for example, 
named William Thome, who was a justice, 
and Thomas Bloyse, who was not, to over- 
see the administration of his estate. Chief 
Justice and former sheriff Stephen Horsey 
named Michael Williams, Alexander 
Draper, and Benjamin Sumner, three small 
planters without positions of power. When 
Justice Nicholas Rice died childless in 

I 1678, he devised his considerable estate not 
to the children of men with whom he shared 
a place on the bench, but to two of his 
servants, Richard Crockett and John Ev- 
ans. The Boston family will furnish a final 

' examine. Shortly after Henry died in 1676, 
his three underage sons appeared in court 
to choose guardians. None chose from 

. a^&ng Somerset's major officers. Isaac 



chose William Planner, a small planter, 
Esau named William Walston, a cooper, 
and Richard, who was illegitimate, picked 
Richard Catlin, a shoemaker. Somerset's 
rulers and their families did not see them- 
selves as a group apart. 

It will not do to overstate the case. There 
was a small group of rich families who lived 
well in the Chesapeake during the seven- 
teenth century. Before Ingle's Rebellion 
those at the top had almost all come from 
English landed families. There were still 
such men in Maryland after 1645, mostly 
members of the Calvert family, but by and 
large their place had been taken by men of 
mercantile origins. Men like William 
Stone, Edward Lloyd, Robert Slye^Benja- 
min Rozer, Thomas'NM^, W^^ftHliKt 
Stevens — the dominant figures in Mary- 
land between 1650 and 1680 — all began as 
merchants, sometimes as independent 



Two Views of Servitude 



And therefore I cannot but admire, and 
indeed much pitty the dull stupidity of 
people necessitated in England, who 
rather then . . . remove themselves [ to 
Maryland], live here a base, slavish, pen- 
urious life; as if there were a necessity to 
live . ..80, choosing rather^ ^ . to stuff 
Nei^^'€tm^^&fiimiif,- tmd' (Mmr^^^ 
with their carkessies, nay cleave to ty- 
burne it selfe, and so bring confusion to 
their souls, horror and infamie to their 
kindred or posteritie, others itch out their 
wearisom lives in reliance of other mens 
charities . . . ; some more abhoring such 
courses betake themselve to almost per- 
petuall and restlesse toyle and druggeries 
out of which (w hVm^% Mr strength las- 
testh) they (observing hard diets, earlie 
and late houres) make hard shift to sub- 
sist from hand to mouth, untill age or 
sicknesse takes them off from labour and 
directs them the way to beggerie, and such 
indeed are to be pittied, relieved and pro- 
vided for. 

— John Hammond, Leah and 
Rmehri^ Or, 7%e Tw»FruithM S^- 
tSNt W»-^mm"mi Mary-IMM 
(London, 1656) 



To my Brother P. A. 

Brother, 

I have made a shift to unloose my selfe 
from my Collar now as well as you, but 1 
see at present either small pleasure or 
profit in it: What the futurality of my 
fk^es will bring forth, I know- not; For 
mhUe I was Hnckt with the- Ohs^ of a 
restraining Servitude, I had all things 
cared for, and now I have all things to 
care for my self, which makes me almost 
wish my self in for the other four years. 

Liberty without money, is like a man 
opprest with the Gout, every step he puts 
forward puts him in pain; when on the 
other side, he that, has Coyn with } 
Liberty, is IHk the st0fPd M'- <ife>gi<>ii 
of the Gods, that wears wings at his heels, 
his motion being swift or slow, as he 
pfecaeth. 



Your Brother, 
G.A. 

From Mary-Land, 
Dec. 11 

•—George Alsop, A Charmiftmf &f the 
Province of Mary-Land (London, 
1666) 



86 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



traders, often as factors in a family enter- 
prise. All invested in land and planting, a 
few practised law, most loaned money, but 
the basis of the larger fortunes was trade. 
Their wealth was not great by English stan- 
dards. An estate of £1500 was more than 
enough to place a man near the top of the 
group, and that sum was less than the an- 
nual income of the leading London colonial 
merchants. Their wealth was sufficient to 
separate them from the great majority of 
settlers, but theirs was not a closed circle. 
Men such as Philip Lynes and Nicholas 
Gassaway, both former servants, or Wil- 
liam Burgess and John Hammond, who 
started as small planters, were able to rise 
to the very top of the planter-merchant 
establishment. Dozens of others rose from 
the ranks of servants or small planters to 
the lower edge of the group. Men who began 
as merchants, furthermore, often experi- 
enced considerable social mobility. William 
Stevens, for example, was Somerset 
County's wealthiest man and most influ- 
ential citizen. In addition to his extensive 
trading activities, Stevens operated three 
plantations and was one of the largest land 
speculators in Maryland. Stevens gained 
appointment to the Provincial Council in 
1679, a position he held until his death 
eight years later. Yet he did not begin as a 
man of great wealth and status. Steveiv^ 
had acquired a place in society that ft* 
would have found difficult to obtain had he 
stayed in England. Late in his life, Stevens 
described himself as "formerly of London 
Ironmonger now of Somerset County in the 
Province of Maryland Esquire," thus 
briefly summarizing a social process that 
marked his career and that of many of 

Toward the '^OLKiN Age" 

The yeoman planter's age was clearly on 
the wane by the 1680s, although there was 
a tendency for the social structure of mid- 
century to persist — more strictly, to be re- 
created — at the edge of Euro- American set- 
tlement. The most striking change was in 
the labor system. Before 1680, the great 
majority of unfree workers in Maryland 
were indentured servants who were not 
sharply distinguished from the planters 
they8#gl'ft#«it*<^j#- « *iii 4 «p »g t4&^ t^^ 



masters in their own right. As the century 
progressed, however, planters found it in- 
creasingly difficult to obtain enough such 
workers to meet their need for labor. A 
declining population and slowly rising real 
wages in England created improved oppor- 
tunities at home, while the opening up of 
Pennsylvania, the beginnings of rapid de- 
velopment in the Carolinas, and continued 
growth along the tobacco coast and in the 
sugar islands led to greater colonial com- 
petition for workers. The result was a labor 
shortage in Maryland and a change in the 
composition of the work force as planters 
purchased slaves to replace servants. In 
1680, servants outnumbered slaves by al- 
most three to one and blacks were only five 
percent of Maryland's population. By 1710 
there were roughly five slaves for each serv- 
ant and blacks were nearly twenty percent 
of the inhabitants, while in some counties 
the proportion approached one-third.^'' 

The identification of blacks with slavery 
is so central to the history of the American 
South that it is difficult to remember that 
their status was not predetermined and 
that an alternative pattern of race relations 
was a possibility. Some historians argue 
that it was more than merely possible. Dur- 
ing the middle decades of the seventeenth 
century, there were places along the Bay 
where English colonials and Afro-Ameri- 
erfl(!S'Ii^«J*^ti9getil^w-^^ *rhe 
most dramatic example of such a multira- 
cial community appeared on Virginia's 
Eastern Shore. The blacks who lived there 
came as slaves, but many — nearly a third 
by the 1660s — acquired freedom against 
imposing odds, built stable families, accu- 
mulated property, formed firm, sustaining 
ties with other blacks, and participated in 
local society in w^ sinilar to that of their 
white neighbors. 

While the achievement of these Eastern 
Shore blacks is inspiring, it is not clear how 
much should be made of it. One difficulty 
is that we know little about the lives of 
blacks in the Chesapeake colonies during 
the early and middle decades of the seven- 
teenth cegtu^. TJigre were, jt is clear, rel- 
ativdy feff'^rf'fcfewHy M»^^. af*l odd Ne- 
groes" who arrived at Point Comfort in late 
August 1619 on a Dutch ship having grown 
m^bmmm'm&mAJimk^^i^ Most 



Population, Eeoaomiif and Society 



87 



blacks probably arrived in small groups, the 
by-product of privateering ventures, the 
coastal trade, the migration of British mas- 
ters from one colony to another, and the 
brief period of intense Dutch activity in the 
Chesapeake trade during the 1640s and 
1650s. Their origins were diverse, some 
coming directly from Africa, at least one by 
way of England, others by way of the Brit- 
ish Caribbean, and, judging by their names, 
a substantial proportion from Spanish and 
Portuguese colonies. They were also clearly 
perceived as a group apart and discrimi- 
nated against in a variety of ways; some, 
such as their description in legal records, 
were fairly subtle while others, like the 
prohibition against bearing arms, the tax- 

I iMf^ black but not white \ im m mf«^ 1^ 
powerful sanctions against interracial sex, 
were more blatant.^® 

What is not certain is that most blacks 
were slaves or that most whites assumed 

' thBt*9fervery was the appropriate and-IMml 
condition for Africans in the Chesapeake. 
The issue has been the subject of a long 
and occasionally acrimonious debate that 
has so far yielded two important conclu- 

' ^ons. First, and in sharp cdirtrait tw -ftte 
situation in 1700, there was considerable 
ambiguity in the legal status of blacks in 
Maryland and Virginia during the first half 
of the seventeenth century. As Edmund 
Morgan has pointed out, blacks in the 
Chesapeake "occupied an anomalous posi- 
tion. Some were undoubtedly slaves . . . and 

1 it seems probable that all Negroes, or 
nearly all, arrived in the colony as slaves. 
But some were free or became free; some 
were servants or became servants. And all, 
servant, slave, or free, enjoyed rights that 
were later deni«#«}l' #Jegroes in Virginia." 
Second, racism was much less powerful and 
pervasive among whites than it would later 
become. While there is clear evidence of 
racially-based discrimination, there is also 

' evidence*- #«»fc'iw'Sirtcft«cia}- society in 
which blacks would participate as some- 
thing other than slaves was not inconceiv- 
able, that whites were able "to think of 
Negpoes as members ot potential member 

' (^-the-ccmimunity o«- the ^acffle' tettlis m 

I other" inhabitants.^^ 

Writing with precision on the legal statvis 
#MlfehiM*4'«llii«riieM attitiides >@f whites 



during the early seventeenth century is dif- 
ficult, but penetration beyond such matters 
to the ways blacks adjusted to life along the 
tobacco coast is nearly impossible. The evi- 
dence is simply too thin to support firm 
conclusions. Still, it is possible to offer a 
few suggestions. The population was too 
small, spread too thinly across the region, 
and made up of people from backgrounds 
too diverse to support an independent, au- 
tonomous black culture distinct from that 
of English Americans. Blacks were over- 
whelmed, and the social context placed a 
premium on rapid assimilation. With racial 
prejudice as yet relatively weak and the law 
uncertain, blacks in the Chesapeake could 
capture tangible rewards through assimi- 
lation, by learning Englisftv ' t s ecqfeikife' 
Christians, and mastering European work 
routines. The evidence is that many quickly 
did so and that the willingness of whites to 
entertain the possibility of an integrated 
community was mattiiwjHby k-WlMttgrmm 
(although, it is true, they had little choice) 
of blacks to Anglicize. At what price, we 
can only guess. 

The ambiguities surrqunding the poei- 
tiOH' of Mssete- were 'tesdlved- as tte" seven- 

teenth century progressed. The legislatures 
of both Maryland and Virginia, — goaded by 
the efforts of blacks to win freedom in the 
courts, enticed by a steady growth in the 
number availableffdf eBfelat?%ment, encour- 
aged by the strengthening of race prejudice, 
and perhaps inspired by the example of 
other British colonies — worked out the 
logic of racial slavery and established that 
logic as law. By the 1660s most blacks in 
the Chesapeake, perhaps excepting those of 
the lower Eastern Shore, were slaves for 
Ufe, and the 'ekwiee'that they cmMrm^imH 
freedom was small. At the same time, the 
few who escaped slavery watched their free- 
doms erode and their position become ever 
more precarious as the identification of 
biadlNwiwife 'BftwaAi^-toMe- -th^ 
withittt^Masters. 

How seriously, then, should we take the 
possibility that residents of the tobacco 
coast could have built a society with a 
greater degree of racial justtee tMn in f&ct 
eSierged? The answer, it would seem, is not 
very. A humane pattern of race relations 
and the growth of a-^'liii Midi ppHM^ry 



Maryland Hiptqwcal Maoa^ne 



< 88 

I were possible only as long as blacks were 
, few and only while a cheap alternative to 
I African labor remained available. When 
J white servants became scarce and expen- 
i sive, planters bought slaves. African labor 

Isoon dominated the work force, racial lines 
hardened into a rigid caste system, and 
I opportunities for blacks disappeared. The 
»me with which planters turned to slavery 
on a large scale — the quick response to 
changing prices, their lack of hesitation and 
failure to question the choice — suggests 
I that prospects for a less oppressive system 
t 9£ race relations were never strong. 
'' By the 1670s, then, when blacks began 

to arrive in Maryland in large numbers 
directly from Africa, their fate was sealed. 
I Blacks would be slaves and they would face 
a harsh environment. Their demographic 
circumstances proved even more constrain- 
I ing than those encountered by whites. They 
too suffered from the volatile disease envi- 
t f m m e nl^ mii «^ M%i B e *of women suffi- 
cient to prevent reproductive growth. But 
' they also had to endure a degrading slavery 
' and abusive masters, isolation from other 
bladts cm fymall plantations, and restric- 
tions tnrdfsir mobility that prevented them 
, from taking full advantage of the few op- 
I portunities to form families left by the al- 
[ ready severe demographic regime. Never- 
theless, they ey^^mmss^oed a transition re- 
markably similar' to that among whites. 
I Creole blacks, like their Euro-American 
I counterparts, lived longer, "married" ear- 
I Her, had more durable unions (despite their 
I masters' frequent disregard of their family 
[ ties), and produced more children than had 
I their immigrant parents. By the 1720s 
[ there were enough native-born blacks in 
Maij fc ai ^ to create a naturally increasing 
[ slave population. Slavery remained harsh 
; and oppressive, but demographic changes 
I helped blacks give structure, meaning, and 
dignity to their lives, to build ties of affec- 

oppression more bearable and their condi- 
I tion less desperate. The growth of a native- 
• born slave population also fostered the rise 
erf & distinctive Afro-American culti*e» 
1 IWffft •etrt af n &mm&fr ■bwftage and sktmd 
experience and articulated through kin net- 
I works, that ended the cultural homogeneity 
f that prevailed in Maryland ^ sev- 

enteenth century.^® 



The growth of slavery was only the most 
visible of the changes that worked to trans- 
form Maryland's labor system after 1680. 
There were also significant changes in the 
distribution of labor, in the types of people 
who came as servants, in opportunities, and 
in master-worker relationships. When 
servants dominated the work force, unfree 
workers were widely distributed among 
Maryland households. Most small and mid- 
dling planters owned servants, most labor- 
ers lived on small farms, and plantations 
manned by large gangs were rare — condi- 
tions which promoted the integration of 
laborers into the families they served. Hbw- 
ever, the labor shortage drove servant 
prices up, and slaves required a larger ini- 
tial investment than poor meti 4mM IMM^ 
age, processes which joined to drive small 
planters out of the labor market and to 
concentrate unfree workers on the estates 
of the wealthy. Further, since slaves did not 
become free and did reproduce themselves, 
they proved easier to accumulate than did 
servants. In the 1660s, half the household- 
ers worth £30 to £50 sterling owned unfree 
workers and the majority of «f rvants and 
slaves labored for men ^*wth'le&fe tiwn 
£200. By the 1710s, fewer than 10 percent 
of the planters worth £30 to £50 owned 
labor, and the majority of bound workers 
lived on estates appraised at more than 
£700. The transformation of the Chesa- 
peake labor system promoted the growth of 
large plantations, a process with far-reach- 
ing consequences lati^it twfetwun ^Hfiry- 
land society .^^ 

Indentured servitude did not disappear 
with the rise of slavery, but it did decline 
in importance and it did change. Before 
1680, a sii)*fem^ip#e^©#4o*ri*tf-«H»<«m-- 
ants recruited to Maryland were drawn 
from England's middling families, young 
men in their late teens and early twenties 
who often arrived with skills and prior work 
experience, men whose backgrodftd» Teai?m - 
bled those of the planters they served. Such 
men continued to come after 1680, usually 
to work on large plantations as managers 
<» a^^MMr but they no longer dominated 
^ li^pMtron; itfsfctad, 9«rvants-w«re now 
drawn primarily from the depressed and 
disadvantaged of England's inhabitants. 
They wmmxitme often female, more likely 
to be young, unskilled, inexperienced, and 



Poptdation, Ecemcm,^ and S@c^y 



80 



illiterate, more frequently orphans or con- 
victs, recruited in larger numbers from 
England's Celtic fringe. The shift in com- 
position widened the gap between master 
and servant, reinforcing the impact of the 
concentration of workers on large planta- 
tions. Moreover, the change was accom- 
panied by a sharp decline in prospects as 
the tobacco industry stagnated. Tenancy, 
sharecropping, and wage labor, once steps 
up an agricultural ladder leading to own- 
ership of a plantation, became the life-long 
fate of a growing proportion of former serv- 
ants. Late in the seventeenth century, 
Maryland exchanged a labor system that 
promised poor men eventual integration 
into the society they served for one that 
kept a majority of its laborers in perpetual 
bondage and offered the others a choice 
between poverty and migration. 
Hiqually important changes occurred at 
the top of Maryland society. In the middle 
decades of the seventeenth century, several 
processes prevented the emergence of a 
ptoi^r oligarchy. The demographic regime 
^WS'ttSMttajor obstacle. Short life expectan- 
cies, late marriages, and an immigrant ma- 
jority worked to keep early Maryland rela- 
tively open, unstructured, and homoge- 
without clear distinctions of class or 
<f&ite (subjugated Indians excepted). Men 
in the process of accumulating fortunes 
were cut down before they acquired great 
•iiflth and before their sons were old 
enough to take their place. An absence of 
dense kin networks, the steady arrival of 
men from England with capital and con- 
nections, and the frequent success of those 
who began without such advantages fore- 
stalled the development of solidarity and 
group consciousness among those at the 
top. 

It would be an error to call Maryland 
efeao*ls^uring the ■s«ive!ftt««(tth-cenftaty. On 

the whole, government functioned in an 
efficient and orderly fashion, despite occa- 
sional breakdowns, delivering essential 
services, providing for the administration 
of justice, and liftateffeaining the rule'ttMlfw. 
However, Maryland's ruling elite of the 
early colonial period exhibited a smaller 
sense of public responsibility and a less 
thorough idenjification with the province 
than wouii>^tMP eighteenth-cen1»iry de- 
scendants. Too many rich planters "looked 



out for number one" and pursued the (usu- 
ally vain) dream of a retirement to England 
and the good life, while most eschewed so- 
cial graces and fine living for investment 
and estate building. Provincial politics re- 
flected social reality. There was little con- 
tinuity in leadership and a shortage of able, 
experienced men to run the government. 
Institutional structures, while more sophis- 
ticated than most historians allow, re- 
mained primitive and "immature." People 
looked to England for solutions to local 
problems more willingly than they would 
in the eighteenth century, and public life 
was punctuated by occasional disorder as a 
few ambitio«i#4Mi, unrestrained 4^ -«kMM 
discipline, a sense of obligation, or a com- 
mitment to the colony's future, scrambled 
for wealth and power. 

The character of those at the top began 
to shift arourid^tjiw^lwim of the century. 
Again, demography proved crucial. The 
growth of a Creole majority meant longer 
lives, earlier and more durable marriages, 
dense and elaborate kin networks. In turn, 
these developments had a profound impwict 
on wealth distribution and inheritance, on 
group consciousness among the great plant- 
ers, and on public life in the colony. Longer 
lives gave men mare opportunity to accu- 
mulate fortunes and led to a sharp increase 
in inequality. Main's study of probate in- 
ventories reveals that the top 10 percent of 
the wealthowners owned only 43 percent of 
the wealth before 1680 but 64 percent in 
the 1710s, a shift due largely to greater 
numbers of older men in the decedent pop- 
ulation. Moreover, older men were more 
likely to have adult sons vAmk ^ey died 
and thus were better able to pass on their 
estates, their political power, and their so- 
cial position intact.^' 

The impact of the rise of a native-born 
population went-twytwid wealth Wi^'iB-her- 
itance. Wealthy Creoles had a different con- 
ception of themselves, different relation- 
ships to each other and to Maryland thaia 
had theii imH^mnt forebears. Their com- 
mitmen€s*we¥^t«J tR6 -colony and, although 
many were educated in England, few 
thought of retirement there. Their homes 
and their futures lay in Maryland. They 
pursued.iyii» good life in the colony, built 
fine, e llfea i iiti y-fumiahed h(»iM, eulti- 
vated social graces, and adqpted a "formal" 



90 



MARYLAitD Historical Magazine 



life style that distinguished them sharply 
from their poorer neighbors. They thought 
erf themselves as a group apart as their 
frequent intermarriages, their friendships, 
and their social lives testify. 

The rise of a class-conscious, native- 
horn gentry transformed public life, as a 
Small group of "First Families" assumed 
the responsibility (and captured the bene- 
fit) of government at both the local and 
l^rovincial levels. Leadership became more 
<ecHitinuous, experienced, and competent. 
The most capable members of the emerging 
oligarchy, having shown promise in private 
life and proven themselves in county gov- 
ernmeiA;^ -liiBe vestry, en^'tltif^lnilitia, won 
election or appointment to a provincial of- 
fice and were then returned or reappointed 
for term after term. Better leadership led 
to greater institutional sophistication and 
loaturity. In pai ii^ aa^l^ assembly, the 
focus of the "country party's" power, be- 
came more active in initiating legislation, 
assumed control over its own organization, 
created an elaborate committee structure, 
and acquired more influence over patronage 
and finances, all developments reflecting 
the local gentry's "quest for power." Plant- 
ers became less inclined to look to England 
i&r solutions to local problems, although 
English connections remained invaluable 
assets, and proved more ready to pursue 
their own strategies. Factionalism per- 
^Mtiid, but the networks of family connec- 
tions made the factions more stable and 
less often disruptive. Leaders proved more 
willing to sacrifice short-term advantage to 
the long-term interests of their families 
%ind their cltMlK , ■. 

The rise of the gentry also had an effect 
on assessments of Maryland. Promotional 
tracts aside, public judgments in the sev- 
enteenth century were usually negative. 
©*ipltis'«he impressive "|tt(W*h "itr fi'Mfttto, 
population, and settled area along the to- 
bacco coast, English commentators were 
often disappointed, sometimes dismayed, 
occneionally offended. They complained 
"ttfttf he region was unhealthy and sparsely 
populated, that land had been engrossed by 
a handful of grasping officials, that the 
colonies lacked towns and industry and re- 
lied too heavily on tobacco. What proved 
itiM, ^l^ifessing, however, were the alleged 



character defects among the inhabitants, 
particularly among the leadership. English- 
men described residents of the Bay colonies 
as "worthless idlers" and "moneygrub- 
bers," lazy, ignorant provincials, incompe- 
tent to succeed at home, men too crude to 
recognize gentility, too self-serving to de- 
velop a sense of public responsibility. 
Planters lacked the social graces despite 
their pretensions, thought only of their es- 
tates, and looked forward to a time when 
they might, as one buffoonish caricature 
had it, "bask under the shade of my own 
Tobacco, and drink my punch in Peace." 
Many residents of the colonies shared the 
disappointment, although th^ ^Mii»-'leNMS 
shrill in their commentaries, more readily 
persuaded that economic opportunity was 
ample compensation for social and political 
failings. Still, there were few spirited de- 
fen#af6 «f •Chesapeake society in the sev- 
enteenth century and frequent admissions 
that civil conversation was "seldom to come 
at except in books. "^^ 
Countryrt^n £entlemej3. had a different 

©waJwi^fc and a firm belief in the region's 
future. They resented characterizations of 
themselves as ignorant boors and rejected 
the notion that American nativity coa- 
demned them to cultural inferiority. While 
they were sometimes exasperated with the 
social failings of the colonies, they were less 
likely to accept those defects WMftfatoMei- 
cism of their immigrant parents, more 
likely to take remedial action. And they 
were quick to turn the tables, to condemn 
English luxury and decadence and to cele- 
%ilift''Colonial simplicity. ^Wke «iBe>«6f''«he 
planter oligarchy led to a more sanguine 
interpretation of Chesapeake society and 
toward the formation of an American idea- 
tity. 

• ffwaB^not shnplya chafige in interpre- 
ters, however. Maryland was a much differ- 
ent place in 1720 than it had been half a 
century earlier. For many, life was more 
secure and mom comfortable. . Mortality 
rates had'de*ained,-irf<ri«t«t>ri?s hsA low- 
ered, farm building and diversification had 
erected buffers against the uncertainties of 
the international market, public life had 
lost its rough and tumble quality. But se- 
curity aiiMt'e d l i i foift '«aa» ^ a high price. 



Population, Eeommy, ami Society 



91 



The open, undifferentiated society of the 
yeoman planter's age had disappeared. In 
its place there had emerged a society in 
which wealth and position were more often 
inherited than achieved and where poor 
men found few opportunities, a society with 
a social structure marked by clear (but not 
unbridgeable) class distinctions and a 
harsh caste barrier. Maryland's great plant- 
ers were building their "golden age," an age 
that brought wealth and power to a few, 
c^fgy^^a^^ sfj^ji^t^thers, poverty and 
W mmf. '^Sms is an ambigu- 
&m y^ey. It troubles us st4Il. 

1. Although this essay focuses on Maryland, most of 
the arguments apply to the Chesapeake colonies 

• fraerally, to Virginia, parts of North Carolina, 

- "md lower Delaware. It draws heavily on a rich 
■fecent literature reviewed in Thad W. Tate, "The 
■i Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake and Its Modern 

t SKstorians," in Tate and David L. Ammerman, 
^-'Ms., The Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century: 
Essays on Anglo-American Society (Chapel Hill, 

- iN.C, 1979, 3-50; Allan Kulikoff, "The Colonial 
■••' Oto i ipw i faBr Seedbed of Antebellum Southern 

Culture?" Journal of Southern History, XLV 
(1979), 513-540; and John J. McCusker and Rus- 
sell R. Menard, The Economy of British America, 
1607-1790: Needs and Opportunities for Study 
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1984), ch. 6. 

2. Thomas Robert Malthus, An Mma^ mm ^Prin- 
ciple of Population, As It Aff^stg^i^Wv^m Im- 

1798), 9. ' r ■ u 
S» BiM Bi M ^W^^- f Immigrants and Tlnii In- 
■i^NwlSi: 'Mlfe 'Wfefeeii ' of Population Grdwth in 
'^M&r\y Colonial Maryland," in Aubrey C. Land, 
■ 'iliois Green Carr, and Edward C. Papenfuse, eds., 
' ><iMe^iS^ffi^^, and Politics in £a)l%MiBf^)tetMBal- 
''^/bre; 1OT7), 88-110, providlw ttf-mmmkfn of 
wj^esapeake demographic histdHg^^TM^ l^rdiRent 
'>')«taborated there and summar^A&t^MtkrilM^ 
' %k»%««n challen^%F'T<I«>{A«Mfe«»^«Hi^.P. 

• ilSwiWSs, "The Grewth «^'PSp^S«t^bn■^ln<iliatKH 
' 9eiiie«:|B^<lk*Ml%h^Century Chesapeake," Explo- 
-•■Vt^hMf m le(*o^ History, XV (1978), 290-312. 

' #t4iiK> my respoiM«^^Tlw6ccm4Jki at Population 
4bte<>hesapeak« ^«iiii«!^'#IM»ent," ibid, 
XVIII (1^1), 3#»-410; tmd A^er»eii!».<i^y, 
"Ft&m the Parts to l^e^WSielfef MMIBflfii^fte^ 
<i^#!ition History," U>fd., XVHIn^M^, 
'W^ifW.'f w mortahty rates see Lorena S.'f^tMi 
and Russell R. Menard, "Death in the CkMa- 
peake: Two Life Tables for Men in Early Colonial 
Maryland," Md. Hist. Mag., LXIX (1974), 211- 
S27; Darrett B. Rutman and Anita H. Rutman, 
"Of Agues and Fevers: Malaria in the Early Om»- 
apeake," WiUiam and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., 
^^WHiia^i^SlMMt'and Carviie <'En- 
vhMWHti'^ BllW ft gg; HM Mortality 4n AH% Vir- 



ginia," in Tate and Ammerman, eds., OheM^e^ 
in the Seventeenth Century, 96-125. 

4. On family life in the early Chesapeake, see Darrett 
B. Rutman and Anita H. Rutman, "'Now-Wives 
and Sons-in-Law': Parental Death in a Seven- 
teenth-Century Virginia County," in Tate and 
Ammerman, eds.. The Chesapeake in the Seven- 
teenth Century, 153-182; Lorena S. Walsh, "'Till 
Death Us Do Part': Marriage and Family in Sev- 
enteenth-Century Maryland," ibid., 126-152; and 
Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh, "The 
Planter's Wife: The Experience of Women in 
Seventeenth-Century Marytemli" Wt^^^Sei., 
XXXIV, (1977), 542-571. 

5. For 1640 see Russell R. Menard, "Economy and 
Society in Early Colonial Maryland" (Ph.D. diss., 
University of Iowa, 1975), 75-77. For 1712 see 
Menard, "Five Maryland Census Returns, 1700 to 
1712: A note on the Quality of the Quantities," 
WMQ, 3d Ser., XXXVII (1980), 625. 

6. Benedict Leonard Calvert to the Lord Proprietary, 
October 26, 1729, William Hand Browne, et al, 
eds.. Archives of Maryland, 72 vols. (Baltimore, 
1883—) XXV, 602. This section summarizes my 
essay, "The' lt al Witic e Industry in the Chesapeake 
Colonies, ICf^TSO: An Interpretation," Re- 
search in Economic History, V (1980), iafts-177. 
Jacob M. Price is the premier historian df the 
tobacco trade, although the focus of his we^%5 
the 18th century. See especially France aitd the 
Chesapeake: A History of the French TobaceSMo- 
nopoly, 1674-1791, and of Its Relationship tki 
British and American Trade (Ann Arbor, 1973). 
Paul G.E. Clemens, The Atlantic Economy and 

- (Monial Maryland 's Eastern Shore: From Tobacco 
^- Grain (Ithaca, 1980), 29-40, 111-119, is an 
excellent brief overview. 
■7. Berkeley to (Thomas Povey?), March 30, 1663, 
Egerton MS 2395, ff. 362-364, British Museum. 
Carville V. Earle, The Evolution of a Tidewater 
' i Smtkmmn t System: All Hallow 's Parish, Maryland, 
l&m^TSS (Chicago, 1975), provides an insightful 
analysis of th« growing diversi%^ si € 8t»l *i |> Bake 
plantations. 

8^ 4»ei*' O w ie a Carr and Lorena S. Walsh, "Invento- 
^ <fy»t:Mitiie Analysis of Wealth and Consumption 

' ■'iNnterns in St. Mary's County, Maryland, 1658- 
17^7," Historical Methods, XIII (1980), 81-104, is 
a good iHtro^ction to the use of Mi^lwd 'pro- 
bate records. 

9. Allan Kulikoff provides estimates of per capita 
wealth for 18th-century Maryland in "The Eco- 
nomic Growth of the Eighteenth*©Mlfei!fty Ches- 
apeake Colonies," Journal of Eisi^^irie'l^^ry, 
K3Qil^lM^~27^m> 
MemtOmimk^imiii, WtiMi-efii fMm m Be 
^•te^fM^JlH^' aM^ €1' tke per- 

■ ^MwaW '<^ %iiy'«fely lW*e#eMi e ia i BwBy , is a 
foofl Miteeiaction to tM 'M a wB i^ ' ' 
nr^ite^ieime^limiittA tpfirmAi to the eirtjr Amer- 
ican econoii|)KM-<iC^««ped in David WP^MlMxson 
and Ruseeil' MfeiHrd, "Approaclliis 't© the 
Analysis o ^Bi&iMWi ic Growth in Colonial ^tish 
Amenea," mmtH^Sd Methods, XIII (1981),-'8-l8, 
aR(l 'iwlM0Mk«'*Mfid MeiMtrd, Ecem»my of British 
Ameetia, 



92 



Maryland Histomcal Magazine 



12. On income per capita from tobacco see Menard, 
"Tobacco Industry in the Chesapeake Colonies," 
122-123. On the growth process at the local level 
see P. M. G. Harris, "Integrating Interpretations 
of Local and Regionwide Change in the Study of 
Economic Development and Demographic 
Growth in the Colonial Chesapeake, 1630-1775," 
Regional Economic History Center, Working Pa- 
pers, I (1978), 35-71. 

13. Percey Wells Bidwell and John I. Falconer, His- 
tory c/ Agriculture in the Northern United States, 
1620-1860 (Washington, D.C., 1925), 82. Farm 
building in 17th-century Maryland is discussed in 
Russell R. Menard, Lois Green Carr, and Lorena 
S. Walsh, "A Small Planter's Profits: The Cole 
Estate and the Growth of the Early Chesapeake 
Economy," WMQ. 3d Ser., XL (1983), 171-196. 

14. On the structure of this first Maryland society, 
se€ Menard, "Economy and Society in Early Co- 
lonial Maryland," ch. 2, and Menard and Lois 
Green Carr, "The Lords Baltimore and the Colo- 
nization of Maryland," in David B. Quinn, ed.. 
Early M ai ytmd mmmUm mMd^mat^amZ), 
167-215. 

^r^^olitics during the 1630s and 1640s see Rtissril 
!' R. Menard, "Maryland's 'Time of TrouHeS'i 
flHirces of Political Disorder in Early St. NftMi^'B," 
Md. Hist. Mag., LXXVI (1981), 141-158. ' 

16. On the structure of Maryland society during the 
yeoman planters' age, see Menard, "Economy and 
Society in Early Colonial Maryland," ch. 5. 

1.7. Lois Green Carr and Russell R. Menard, "Immi- 
gration and Opportunity. The Freedman in Early 
Colonial Maryland," in Tate and Ammerman, 
eds., Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century, 228. 

i®. Lorena S. Walsh, "Servitude and Opportunity ia 
Charles County, Maryland, 1658-1705," in Land, 
•Carr, and Papenfuse, eds.. Law, Society, and PcSt- 
itics in Ekirly Maryland, 111-133. See also Russell 
R. Menard, "From Servant to Freeholder: Status 
MoUli^ aad Property Accumulation in Seven- 
teenth-Century Maryland," WMQ, 3d Ser., XXX 
^73), 37-64. 

19. "The paragraphs on diet, clothing, and housing in 
this section draw -bMvily.cm ,m w t c eB w it recent 
book by Gloria iii^ii i/UkniiHSeim^' &»kmy: Life 
m JBm^^Mkmi^milk I4@$is«li6N|MiieetoR, N.J., 

21. md., m. 

Clayton Torrence, Old Somerset on the Eastern 
Shore of Maryland: A Study in Foundetti&ns and 
Femtders (Richmond, ¥av Bi W tHi M»- 
«ne«ft>«>e provided III tfawird^. j gBi aM awfty . imA 

23. Bmmat^Gmatiy^@«e6ie,ttl^i^^%Mm:^tax^tA 

of Records, Annapolis. • - , 
^ .#R Ibhe growth of slavery im^MsgllMapeake region 

. ■mm9m{ mrnf-mm^iDm^d w. g«mi^, 

It^iMiV' <#^flM America: ittt^ileo- 
wmm: Ant^y^s (CbmM^, 1981); Ra«a«H R. 
Menard, "From Servants to Stevee: The 



formation of the Chesapeake Labor System," 
Southern Studies, XVI (1977), 355-390; and the 
books by Clemens and Main cited above. 

25. Their experience is described in T.H. Breen and 
Stephen Innes, "Myne Owne Ground:" Race and 
Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676 
(New York, 1980). 

26. Winthrop D. Jordan's masterful study. White 
Over Black: A merican A ttitudes Toward the N^^, 
lSSO-1812 (Chapel Hill, 1968), remains the Wk. 
introduction to these issues. See also Wesley 
Frank Craven, White, Red, and Block: The Sev- 
enteenth-Century Virginian (Charlottesville, 
1971), and Ross M. Kimmel, "Free Blacks in 
Seventeenth-Century Maryland," Md. Hist. Mc^., 
LXXI (1976), 19-25. 

27. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 
154-155. 

28. On slave demography and th^c^owth ^ an Afro- 
American culture see RusseDTR. Menard, "The 
Maryland Slave P<^ulation, 1658-1730: A De- 
mographic Profile of Blacks in Four Counties," 
WMQ, 3d Ser., XXXII (1975), 29-54; Allan Ku- 
likoff, "A 'Prolifick' People: Black Population 

■ Growth in the Chesapeake Colonies, 1700-1790," 
Southern Studies, XVI (1977), 391-428; and Ku- 
likoff, "The Origins of Afro-American Society in 
Tidewater Maryland and Virginia, 1700 to 1790," 
WMQ, 3d Ser., XXXV (1978), 226^36^- 

29. For the changes in indentured servUsile cteecnbed 
' ' ■ ■mi lllm'mmM immmkp m i ^^ cited 

kbove, iii notes 16 iSidT7. 

30. The rise of the Chesapeake gentry and tlwi'>K%oei- 
panying changes in politics, society, ani*Mikure 
wc'€<a^aLtheinee in recent literati»c.>ES|pe)it8Aly 
notaMe studies include, in additiMMN#« Jlsoks 
%y Main, Clemens, <wAltMli«W Mi(l l M i |fc t.' << /B«r- 
nard Bailyn, "PeiMiS iasA Mtn^' '@^«#l|We in 
V^ini8<" IB J aia ei i 4 Xt) i )lmi ' ftl r i i l ii, <«ih, J<pen- 
tmiiMiir-Ckimtry Atnertea: Msmys m CMIpMitMk- 
tmimmiMM, 1959), 90-11^ @M«iCt^ 
Bm§^itevM.^i^^^ma Jordan, Marylai^s Mmttmion 
cf Government, 1689-1692 (Ithaca, 1974^ii#ehm, 
"Political Stability and the Emergence o(r»#&tive 
Elite in Marjdand," in 'Sk^ imi Jlt!mMaiim,teA., 
Chesapeake in the Se v ett tiiM iGkmrmii/Ai^lZ-, 
Jokn C. Rainbolt, J^W»t^e«ec^p^fenr}»#MkKMi- 
smt: Manipulatiamt'ef ^te^ Stvm i te g m t h Ctnt wry 

li»a» i ifei> lMwefl*lly;t6B»i fe «^ innd, 

' ^ ' ' < ^ ' • ' 

t^^^^ ss^^^k^bfli^* iR>-*<OM7)8KRt '^^mmm^S^^ ^^^Simj^?sh~ 

peaite in the'Mk> e>mMn€mlM'y , Sm^mi'tr^ 
William Fitrfiu|krko WdH^^i^lMnii, Ml. 30, 
1687, Richard Beale Davis, ^.ftmHUkm^i^Mttt^i 
and His Chesapeake World, ^^W-fTWiii^^M^el 
HiU»4A6S)^s 3%iB>«ki«he»)lflt]lBl«##ii^raw 



End the song, end the song, 

For now the flood goes west, the rushing tide, 

The rushing flood of men, 

Huodrad on hmdtte^ mmMng the Hornet i^l^. 

Exile, rebel, men against fortune, all 
I Whm Me driven forth, who seek new life neir<li@^. 

As the wheel of England turns, they are coming now 
To the exile's country, the land beyond the star. 

A rolling, resistless wave of seeking men. 
Settling and planting, creeping along the coast, 
Pushing up river-valleys to the new ground, 
Winthrop and Hooker and Williams — Father White 
Who prayed to all the angels of the Americas, 
(For they must be there) as they settled Maryland. 
There was a wind over England and it blew. 
There was a wind through the nations, and it blew. 
Strong, resistless the wind of the western star, 
The wind from the coasts of hope, from the barely-known, 
And, under its blowing, Plymouth and Jamestown sink 
To the small, old towns, the towns of the oldest graves. 
Notable, remembered, but not the same. 



— Excerpt from "Western Star" by Stephen Vincent Benet (New York: Holt, 
Rinehart and Winston, Inc.), "Book One," pp. 180-181. ^Copyright, 1943, by 
Rosemary Carr Benet. Copyright renewed, 1971, by Thomas C. Benet, Stephanie 
B. Mahin, and Rachel Benet Lewis. Reprinted by permission of Brandt & Brandt 

Lit'TiT-,- A Tpn*;, Inr . Kcw York 



93 



I 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

The editor/coordinator of a cooperative venture such as this one always incurs 
a number of debts, and I have been most fortunate to receive invaluable assistance 
from many persons. I wish to thank Governor H. Mebane Turner and the Council 
of the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Maryland for underwriting this 
Special Issue and especially the Historical Projects Committee of the Society 
(Frederick T. Wehr, Chairman, Edward N. deRussey, Thomas Lee Dorsey, Sr., 
Alan W. Insley, Francis C. Marbury, Frank P. L. Somerville, and Robert 0. C. 
Worcester) for expressing confidence in my abilities. Robert O. C. Worcester and 
Professor John Russell- Wood of The Johns Hopkins University helped conceive 
the design of the Special Issue in an early planning session, and Gary L. Browne, 
the regular editor of the Maryland Historical Magazine, offered assistance and 
encouragement throughout. Karen Stuart, Associate Editor of the Magazine, has 
provided technical assistance. The Rev. Michael diTeccia Farina, director of the 
Paul VI Institute for the Arts, and Mr. John Daugherty, president of Maryland 
Bank and Trust, Lexington Park, graciously agreed to share the talents of artist 
Ben Neill, whose painting of the Ark and Dove appears on the cover, with a wider 
audience. Burt Kummerow, Henry Miller, Garry Stone, Karin Stanford, and 
other friends at the St. Mary's City Commission, and my colleagues at St. Mary's 
College of Maryland, have been helpful and supportive as always. M». Laurie 
^aty and Jeff Goldman helped enormously with photographs. This issue is also 
much the better for the unflagging and cheerful enthusiasm expressed by my 
wife, Jeanette. Finally, considerable thanks and all credit must go to Lois Green 
Carr, John D. Krugler, and Russell R. Menard for their dedication and attention 
to this project. No editor could wish for more talented and considerate contrib- 
utors. 

All that remains is to absolve everyone, except myself, from re^wnsibility for 
flaws and errors that survived the editorial process. I selected the illustrations 
and wrote the captions and will accept the consequences, believing with that 
seventeenth-century "character," George Alsop, that "I am an Adventurer . . . 
[for] I have ventured to come abroad in Print, and if I should be laughed at for 
my good meaning, it would so break the credit of my Understanding, that I 
should never dare to shew my face upon the Exchange of (conceited) Wits again." 

J. Frederick Fausz 



; 94 



Maryland Historical Magazine 
Vol. 79, No. 1, SpmNG 1964 



BOOK REVIEWS 



Early Maryland in a Wider World. Edited by 
David B. Quinn. (Detroit, MI: Wayne State 

* ■ m i Mmsm BliiiMiwiui* pp- $i8.5q.) 

This attractive and useful volume grew from 
a series of lectures delivered in 1977 and 1978 
under the auspices of St. Mary's College of 
Maryland. The idea was to provide "a synoptic 
account of the background and early develop- 
ment of the colony in relation to its English 
backpound, the exploitation of the Atlantic 
Ocean, and the influence of Spain and its em- 
pire" (p. 9). Contributions were invited from 
experts in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century 
history who are among the acknowledged lumi- 
naries of the profession on both sides of the 
Atlantic. The result is a collection of essays, 
each revealing complete mastery of the subject, 
yet expounded with the simplicity £ind vigor 
befitting a public lecture. 

The volume has an introduction by David B. 
Quinn that examines the grant of authority to 
Lord Baltimore, together with its precedents 
and implications. If there are no data here to 
surprise the professional historian, it is largely 
because Quinn 's twenty or more years of schol- 
arship and publication broke the new ground 
long ago. So too with essays by J.H. EUiott on 
Spanish imperialism and J.H. Parry on the 
Spanish presence in eastern North America. 
Together, they supply the international context 
I for Maryland's founding that the volume seeks. 
The English background is explored by G.R. 
Elton in a sparse but effective essay which re- 
jects the notion that seventeenth-century Eng- 
lishmen left home because of a well justified 
discontent. Rather, he argues that they actually 
tried to recreate in America "the essence of 
England, with which they were well content" (p. 
118). From a slightly different perspective, 
David Quinn examines the shaping of overseas 
aspiration by the limited and frequently inac- 
curate perceptions of the New World available 
in Europe. Discussing some of the lesser known 
but characteristic colonial failures prior to 1607, 
Quinn aptly notes the chilling effect of these 
stories back home. An essay by John Bossy then 
^u^^ jpotives of English Catholics and 
f^MOT ffroSSitteent to Lord Baltimore's enter- 
prise. 

A third group of essays discusses aspects of 
settlement. It opens with a paper describing the 
founding and early history of Maryland. Co- 
authors Russell R. Menard and Lois Green Carr 
enhance the political narrative with the intri- 



guing demographic, social, and economic data 
now available. The Menard and Carr chapter, 
while not originally delivered as a lecture, is an 
important contribution from the new scholar- 
ship. So is the paper by Francis Jennings on 
Indians and frontiers in seventeenth-centui^ 
Maryland. Jennings looks at frontiers sts ztHies 
over which different interest groups ruthlessly 
competed. The use of force as a means to attain 
territorial influence, usually at the expense of 
the Indians, is seen by Jennings as an extension 
of the idea of holy war against unbelievers, and 
£in application of feudal hegemony. A thought- 
provoking essay by Richard S. Dunn compares 
masters, servants and slaves in the Chesapeake 
and the Caribbean. He tests Edmund S. Mor- 
gan's interpretation of a symbiotic relationship 
between slavery on the one hand and the colon- 
ial predilection for freedom on the other. Dunn 
finds the Morgan thesis wanting when applied 
to the comparative data from the Chesapeake 
and Caribbean. 

Two remaining essays, one at the begi^iinf 
and the other at the end of the collection^.'Mite 
physical objects as a point of departure. Mtlwin 
H. Jackson's piece on ships and seafaring recon- 
structs a typical voyage from Europe to the 
Chesapeake. He describes the navigational in- 
struments, sailing techniques, and predictable 
hazards. While some of the terminology may be 
obscure to the average reader, the essay contains 
fascinating information for those familiar with 
sailing. Finally, William P. Cumming's chapter 
on early maps of the Bay area is nicely enhanced 
by reproductions of some of the charts discussed, 

The volume joins two other collections of 
essays on colonial Maryland: namely, Law, So- 
ciety, and Politics in Early Maryland, edited by 
Aubrey C. Land, Lois Green Carr, and Edward 
C. Papenfuse, published in 1977, and The Ches- 
apeake in the Seventeenth Century, edited by 
Thad W. Tate and David Ammerman in 1979. 
But while these books are intended for the 
professional historian and focus on Maryland as 
a microcosm of change, Quinn's is directed to- 
ward the nonspecialist and views the colony in 
an international setting. It is therefore quite 
fortuitous that Early Maryland in a Wider 
World is available prior to the three hundred 
and fiftieth anniversary of the first settlement. 
It will be especially valuable for the general 
<Hliiii iiip|<kBU.nd«rgradMate student 0f4nitwy. 

Margaret W. Masson 
Towson State University 



95 



M<<*VLANB HiSTCmKAL MAGAZINE 

Vol. 79, No. 1, Spring 1%4 



96 



Maryland Historical Magazine 



Tobacco Colony: Life in Early Maryland, 1650- 
1720. By Gloria L. Main. (Princeton: Prince- 
ton University Press, Pp-^i ^8*« In- 
dexed. $30.00.) 

This is not Hollywood history. Life in early 
Maryland was tough, crude, fraught with con- 
stant perils of one kind or another, and it was 
short. Rob of the Bowl would have been horrified 
at its existence. Nor is Main's book a narrative, 
Kiade for easy, bedtime reading; it is a classic 
itholarly monograph made up of meaty chapters 
#hich demand conscious intellectual effort from 
its readers. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating and 
important contribution to what we know about 
colonial Maryland — and Chesapeake, for that 
matter — civilization. 

The book is a model of scholarship. To begin 
with, it builds upon the recent work of Lois 
©reen Carr, Gary Garson, Paul Glemens, Rtiseell 
Menard, Jacob Price, and Lorena Walsh among 
many others. Their work has informed us about 
the high adult mortality rate, the early br^k- 
up of families and the orphaning of children, the 
continuing demand for labor and the shift from 
servant to slave during the last two decades of 
the seventeenth century, and the boom-bust 
cyclical impact of the tobacco economy upon the 
MUM structure. Main's contribution is to cast 
ilhfci^ e know about these and other things into 
general framework that encompasses the 
pi0M as a whole. 

According to Main, Maryland remained a 
frontier society during its first century of exist- 
ence. "Despite major changes in both the de- 
mographic and social structure of the colony, 
the daily life of ordinary men and women 
♦icarcely differed in 1720 from that in 1650. The 
IMaterial circumstances in which they lived had 
hot altered at all." (pp. 7-8) Early Marylanders 
lived simply and frugally; in wooden houses that 
lasted ten years, eating from common trenchers 
mainly with their fingers, sometimes with a 
knife, seldom with a spoon, and very rarely with 
a fork. Main even discovered a decline in the 
usage of chamber pots! But Main has an even 
ilaore interesting point: "The conclusion is clear 
t^tl Maryland planters, rich and poor, placed 
tl^#tment ahead of consumption, and lived at 
a level that proved spare, crude, and unself- 
conscious." (p. 7). Early Marylanders thus led 
their lives by choice. Obviously, many of those 
choices (such as the shift from servant to slave 
labor) were influenced by changing economic 
circumstances. Likewise, the range of choices 
available changed with those historical circum- 
stances., Main is by no meant an economic de- 
tetfflffi#^'!tfJM^ is i*ft»sfeilitt6're«d that people 
making choices are once again the center of 
history. 



The book is a collection of seven essays (clus- 
ters), each dealing with a different aspect of the 
same subject. It is not a narrative. The first 
three chapters discuss the economy, population, 
and social structure. They are solid and their 
conclusions persuasive. The remaining four 
chapters discuss what Main calls the consump- 
tion side of colonial Maryland: housing, the 
poorer planters and their families, the middling 
and wealthier planters, and changing standards, 
styles, and priorities. Throughout all the chap- 
ters Main's heavy reliance on probate court rec- 
ords provides a rich mine of information that 
should serve as model for additional work in 
later Maryland history. Five appendices follow 
these chapters. They discuss the demographic 
effects on the wealth of colonial Marylanders, 
currency and price fluctuations, an essay on 
"Probate Records as a Source for Historical 
Investigation," and two glossaries of room 
names, one for Maryland and the other of Eng- 
lish farmhouses in the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries. All of this fascinating infor- 
mation and well-argued conclusions are intro- 
duced by a succinct essay that places Main's 
conception of colonial Maryland into an even 
larger trai)fi-Atlsdl«e iist^. It is an /MbnWile 
work. 

Readers should find Main's last four chapters 
particularly interesting, as much for the way 
that she arrives at a conclusion as for the new 
information that is found there. For example, 
where did the beer come from that loomed so 
large in the accounts of funeral expenses? Brew- 
ing beer was women's work in rural England 
and it was certainly present in colonial Mary- 
land. But Main found few inventories mention- 
ing malt, barley, hops, brewing vats, or beer 
barrels. She is remarkably adept at balancing 
traditional literary sources with the inventories. 

Perhaps her most compelling argument is that 
poverty stimulated an increased reliance on to- 
bacco production as a one-crop system that 
could only be broken by prolonged depression. 
The poorer planters were locked into a cycle of 
debt and dependence upon imported consumer 
goods. Only upper-class households contained 
the tools for making "home manufactures." Be- 
sides, home-made goods were not as finely made 
as imported ones and they consumed more time 
in the making of them, time that could be more 
profitably used in the making of tobacco. Rising 
levels of wealth and the creation of the upper 
classes furnished the means and people who 
produced home manufactures. 

The chapter on housing particularly focuses 
our attention to the differences between the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Frontier 
Maryland houses were wooden, dirty, simple, 
drafty and cold in winter, and insect-filled in 



f 



Book Reviews 



summer. They ranged from the simple one room 
structure of the poorest people to the multiple 
rooms (and beginning room specialization) of 
the wealthier ones. But common to all was the 
lack of what we would call decorative arts as 
well as any order and symmetry among objects 
found in the housing inventories. The two-story, 

(brick, "Georgian" homes with their i^ckilized 
'Uving, dining, and bed rooms — -and iKt^lly bailt 



97 

atop a knoll affording an expansive view of the 
surrounding countryside and river — were a 
product of the wealthier eighteenth century, and 
even then only of the very wealthiest planters. 
Their seventeenth-century precedessors built 
out not up, in wood not brick, and only out of 
need r»tb»r than for display. 

Gary L. Browne 
U.M.B.C. 



■ 



NEWS AND NOTICES 



CONFERENCE ON MABYLANH 
HISTORY 

The Third Hall of Records Conference on 
Maryland History, on the theme 'Maryland, A 
Product of Two Worlds', will be held at St. 
Mary's College of Maryland on May 17-20, 
1984. The conference is co-sponsored by the St. 
Mary's City Commission, St. Mary's College, 
and the Institute ^ Sariy American History and 
C«fc«re, Williamsburg. 

In conjunction with the 350th anniversary of 
the founding of Maryland, the conference will 
present the results of more than a decade of 
research into the seventeenth-century Chesa- 
peake. Historians, geographers, anthropologists, 
and archaeologists have joined forces in recent 
yMffs to examme every kind of evidence — frcMfi 
l*gfti imem4f6 <te i^ls^and tbeir eontiii^ 
ikmit at* dttm^Bg many of our perceptions of 
eatly Atmiieti. Through papers, discussions, lec- 



tures, and informal gatherings, this conference 
wMI provide a forum for scholars to share their 
discoveries. Conference participants will also 
have a special opportunity to visit the excava- 
tions and exhibits of the St. Mary's City Com- 
mission on the site of Maryland's first settle- 
ment. 

There is no registration fee to attend the 
conference, but meals and accommodations 
must be reserved and paid for in advance. For 
further information, contact Dr. Adrienne Ro- 
sen, St. Mary's College of Marylani, 'St. Mary's 
City, MD 20686-, (301) 863-7100 extenKon 372. 



The Paul VI Institute for the Arts of the 
Archdiocese of Washington announces the 
availability of color prints and educational ma- 
Mrkils relating to Maryland's 350th anniveri«y 
Smm its (Mvm at Ivmon Mall, 3847 Br«B^ 
M^fvaem, iwlte 118, Hi&awrt Heights, MD 20748. 



Maryland Historical Magazine 
Vol. 79, No. 1, Spring 1984 



98 




MUSEUM AND LIHIARY OF MARYLAND HISTORY 
MARYLAND HIST0BIC4L SOCIETY 

presents 

GENEALOGICAL BESEARCH 
IN MARYLAND: A GUIDE 

SUD EDITION, 1983 

by 

Mary Keysor Meyer 

GENEALOGICAL REFERENCE LIBRARIAN 
MARYLAND HISTORICAL SCK3IETY 



H 



This 45-pag^ edition of the Giilde has been thoroi||^y jsisviaed 
includes adcBLtional infarmtion on the historical and genealogical 
societies and various resource colters in the State. It includes 
an extensive bibliqpliplsy jHid a list flf j^^^dors of Maryland 
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Colonial Soldiers 
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* ' ^ 1732-1774 



By Murtie June Clark 

These records are composed chiefly of the muster 
rolls and pay rolls of the militias of Maryland, 
Virginia, North and South Gtrolina, and Georgia 
and identify approximately 55,000 soldiers by name, 
rank, date, militia company, and district. 

1,250 pp., indexed, doth. Baltimore, 1983. $50.00 plus $1.00 
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The National Archives Announces Its New 



GUIDE TO 

GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH 

IN THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES 



As the official keeper of 1.3 million 
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tional Archives preserves extensive 
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Guide TO Genealogical Research in 
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This 320-page GUIDE expands and updates 
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creasing the amount of information on the 
many federal records important to 
genealogists and local historians: 

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Military service and pension files 

Ship passenger arrival lists 

Federal land records and many more . . . 

The Guide will prepare you to conduct 
effective genealogical research in federal rec- 
ords, your next step after learning all you can 
from family documents and other local 
sources of information. It is designed to help 
you make a systematic review and selection 
among the wide range of materials available 
in the National Archives. It will hasten that 
exciting moment when you discover doc- 
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family's participation in the great American 
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The Guide is an essential addition to any 
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■ 



GARY L, »OWME, Mitor, Univefdty of MoFy^nd, Baltimore County 
KAREN A. STUART, Associate Editor 



BOARD OF EDITORS 

JOSEPH L. ARNOLD, University of Maryland, Baltimore County 
JEAN BAKER, Gaucher College 
JOHN B. BOLES, Rice University 

GEORGE H. CALLCOTT, University of Maryland, College Park 

JOSEPH W. COX, Northern Arizona University 

CURTIS CARROLL DAVIS, Bmmore 

RICHARD R. DUNCAN, Georgetown University 

RONALD HOFFMAN, University of Maryland, College Park 

EDWARD C. PAPENFUSE, Hall of Records 

BENJAMIN QUARLES, Morgan State University 



FORMER EDITORS 

WILLIAM HAND BROWNE, 1906-1909 
LOUIS H. DIELMAN, 1910-1037 
JAMES W. FOSTER, 1938-1949; 1950-1951 
HARRY AMMON, 1950 
FRED SHELLEY, 1951-1955 
FRANCIS C. HABER, 1955-1958 
RICHARD WALSH, 1958-1967 
RICHARD R. DUNCAN, 1967-1974 
JOHN B. BOLES, 1974-1977 



The Maryland Historical Magazine is published quarterly by The Museum and Library of Maryland 
History, The Maryland Historical Society, 201 West Monument Street, Baltimore, MD 21201 for its 
members. Membership information may be obtained from the Membership Office at the above 
address. 

Correspondence concerning contributions, books for review, and all editorial matters should be 
addressed to the Editor, Maryland Historical Magazine, at the above address (telephone 301/685- 
3750). Manuscripts should be submitted in duplicate, double-spaced, and prepared according to The 
Chicago Mamml of Styie (llKvefAy of Ciiieaif) ftese, 1982). Becmiee raWMScri^s are eviriuated 
anonymously, the atrt;hor's n«me ^KKiM ai^rar only on a separate title page. For return of manuscript, 
include a self-addressed, stamped enreiope. 

The Maryland Historical Society disclaims responsibility for statements, whether of fact or of 
opinion, made by contributors. 



6832 



HALL OF RFCORriR 
COPY 2 




The Museum and Library of Maryland History 
The Maryland Historical Society 
201 W. Monument Street 
Baltimore, Maryland 21201